


Black Sheep Boy

by JustACandle



Category: The Boy (2016 Bell)
Genre: can be read as the pov of reader or an oc or whoever. knock yourself out., oh hey there's some sexual content in there now how did that happen oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2019-08-20 00:47:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16545593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustACandle/pseuds/JustACandle
Summary: A looming figure that would have been threatening if it weren't for the fact that it said your name in such a soft and sweetly concerned way. If it didn't get on its knees next to the bed. Didn't place its porcelain face inches from your own and rest the fingertips of one hand so softly to your cheek that you barely felt them.It was easy to forget just whom you were sharing a home with. A murderer, yes, but 'your' murderer. Your person. Damned if you weren't going to try to make things better for him.[Deals with the mansion's next owner and getting Brahms some (sortof-)professional help.]





	1. The Shine in the Black Sheep Boy

   For a moment there was only the small sound of irritated tapping of the pen on the tabletop. If this hadn't happened several times already, you would have thought you had lost the call, but a moment later, just like the others, a harsh voice answered,

“What are you playing at?”

A click and then the tone. They had disconnected. With a sound somewhere between a sigh and a growl, you hung up the phone and forcefully scratched out the next number on the list. Only three more, and if they didn't respond you would have to widen your net. Considerably. You shook your head at the list, not really in the mood to try again just yet, and instead turned to the next page of the notebook, where another list had begun to form over the past day or so. Your eyes flicked over each item, considering what all you had written until you reached the first blank line then paused, thought for a moment, and added:

 

_-Extremely curious._

 

A light creak of a floorboard behind you had you continuing with

 

_-No sense of other people's privacy._

 

Another creak, a little louder, a little closer this time. The distraction hadn't kept him for long, so it was just as well that you hadn't started the next call. You closed the notebook and shoved it into the black folder nearby, calling out,

“What is it?”

A small voice whined out in response,

“It's Monday.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” you sighed, standing up from the table. “I was just finishing something up, but I'm heading out now, okay?”

You turned and found him hiding halfway behind the door frame of the kitchen, a looming figure who would have seemed imposing if it weren't for the fact that he was so clearly trying to look small and nonthreatening. He watched you with a steady gaze and followed you as you walked past him and down the hall to the front door, slipping on your shoes and collecting your bag and coat. All pieces in place, you turned to face him again, a soft, reassuring smile on your face.

“It's Monday,” you began and he nodded. “Which means it's grocery day. It'll take me about twenty minutes to get to the store, thirty minutes to shop, and another twenty minutes to get back. That's a little more than an hour. Do you understand?” Another nod. “Good. Remember, it's possible I'll be a little longer than that if my car has trouble or if I can't find something, but I'll be back as soon as I can, okay?” A third nod. “Okay. Be good. If you behave, I'll give you some of that candy I bought last week, alright? I'll see you soon, Brahms.”

If it weren't for the fact that he was obviously a grown man of little more than six foot, one would think it was a child staring you down with such intense worry; his hands clasped each other over his stomach, wringing a knot into the pale blue sweater you bought him last month, and his eyes shone wide through the holes of his mask, limbs held closely together and shoulders squeezed in.

“See you... soon.” He echoed in his small voice as you walked out and closed the front door behind you. No need to lock it. What was inside was more dangerous than most anything that might try to get in.

 

-

 

   It had been a good idea to add that cushion of estimated time back when you both had formed The Schedule. In truth, it took all of ten minutes to reach the store and twenty to grab groceries for the week, which left you with roughly forty minutes before you needed to be back- at the least. The grocery bags loaded into the car, you took a minute to glance over the list you had been making, grabbing a pen out and scribbling in: _Strict adherence to schedule_.

You started to close the notebook but paused on the first page- the list of therapists with all but the last three scratched off. A quick glance over the remaining doctors brought forth an interesting detail: one of them was nearby. Really, it would only take a few minutes to get there, and even if things went well and the visit took a little longer than you might have liked, you wouldn't be late enough to cause him real distress. It was worth a shot, at least.

The car started easily, happy to run smoothly in the recent good weather, and you pulled out of the parking lot with your plan running through your head again and again. Finding a willing therapist was the first step. It was also the _easiest_ step, by far.

 

-

 

   He waited until their car had disappeared from view to peel himself away from the window, muttering to himself “An hour... little more than an hour... it's just an hour...” as he turned to face the mansion. The empty house and absolute silence pressed in.

Hands shaking, he took a few quick steps into the small study nearby and dove for the bottom drawer of the desk. It opened easily and inside, hidden under a large dictionary, was his collection. One of them, at least. This one they hadn't found yet, a fact he was thrilled by as he drew out a long scarf and wrapped it around his neck and the bottom of his mask and breathed deeply. They hadn't noticed it was gone yet, and he hoped it stayed that way for a while longer. He sat back on his heels and breathed in again, eyes closing. It smelled like them. His hands slowly began to stop shaking, the anxiety easing out of his bones until he felt quite calm. His eyes opened again. He stood and walked back into the hall. The house was still empty, still quiet, but not quite so overwhelming.

With his mind momentarily clear of worry, he was free to think about other things. Fun things. Like how to punish them for talking about him to strangers on the phone. It didn't need to be anything big, just a small punishment to let them know that he wasn't happy about what they were doing- _whatever_ it was.

There were the candies they had mentioned. They had hid them, but he was fairly confident he could find where their stash was. He was much better at hiding things.

Sure enough, it only took a few minutes of rummaging around the cabinets and refrigerator to discover the small bag of sweets. They had tucked them behind the bag of carrots, which they knew full well was one of his least favorite vegetables. He smiled as he grabbed his prize. They were getting better at this.

He looked thoughtfully around the kitchen as he chewed on his third treat, trying to decide what else to do. He demolished half the bag before pulling himself back, tucking a few into his pocket for later and hiding the rest in one of his own secret hiding spots. He arranged the wrappers in the middle of the table and slunk out of the kitchen.

 

It wasn't enough, though. There had to be something else. Something in their room, perhaps?

 

They had left the door open a crack, knowing it was pointless to lock it since he could get in through the walls anyway, and he stood in the middle of their room gazing about with interest and a calculating look. There wasn't much to work with that would really get the point across. There was just...

He peeked cautiously out the door, holding his breath, listening for any sounds.

Nothing.

He turned his attention back to the room and, in particular, the chest at the end of the bed. It wasn't a great secret what was in there: some personal things of theirs, some papers, a few portfolios for work. The point was, it was where they put anything they didn't want him to get a hold of. A large padlock they had found in the attic held it closed and his fingers worried over the keyhole. He could probably break it. Somehow. If nothing else, he could probably smash the top in.

He froze, remembering the last time he had gotten into their more personal items. It had ended in them shouting at him through the walls and then not speaking to him for _weeks_.

Or... maybe it had only been two days.

Regardless, digging through the chest was perhaps not the best idea. He started to pull back from it but paused as a thought crept in with a smile.

 

Who said he had to 'open' the chest?

 

-

 

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” you said with a smile, taking the seat the doctor had just offered. “I'll try not to take up too much of your time.”

“Not at all.” The doctor, an older woman with curling salt-and-pepper hair, smiled in return. “I have to say, you definitely caught my attention with what you told the receptionist.” She shifted in her seat to pull one leg over the other and rest a pad of paper on her knee. “But maybe you can start from the beginning. What kind of help are you looking for?”

“Oh, it's... it's not for me. I have a, uh...” The plan, the whole script you had planned out in your head, vanished for a moment. You took a deep breath and tried again. “I live with a... a man. We're not related, not really in a _relationship_ , exactly, but we're kind of... taking care of each other? But he's... he's not well. I don't think he ever has been, to be honest, but no one's ever helped him before and I'd... like to try.”

The doctor looked slightly disappointed and said, “Well, if you make an appointment up front, I'll see him as soon as I can.”

“No, see, that's the problem. He won't leave the house.”

“I don't usually make house calls, but we might be able to work something out-”

“No, no, that won't work either. He doesn't let strangers in. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. He can't come to you and you can't go to him, so it's up to me to deal with all of this and I was... I guess I was hoping you could, I don't know... teach me how?”

The doctor stared, her interest clearly caught again. She tapped her pen against her lip.

“Teach you...? What, how to be a psychiatrist?”

“A... therapist? Psychiatrist? I don't know...” You hung your head and covered your face with your hands. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. The plan fell to pieces in your head. “He's thirty-five years old and I don't think anyone's ever taught him how to really... _BE_. I just... I want to help him learn... how to live? How to be _okay_? How to be an adult, and deal with his problems in constructive ways and not lash out at people and-”

“It's alright, I think I understand.” The doctor held up a hand to stop you and smiled reassuringly. “This is definitely an interesting situation. If you really want to be an intermediary, I would be willing to work with you. It will... well, let's be honest. It sounds like it will be _difficult_. It might not actually work, you understand?”

You nodded slowly. The thought had crossed your mind more than once, although it wasn't something you liked to think about.

“Now, you said that he 'lashes out at people'? Has he ever attacked you or anyone else?”

You froze and for a split-second a little girl named Emily flooded your memory.

“If there's a real danger to lives here, I would urge you to have him sent away where he can be watched and receive more focused and personal help without risk to anyone else,” the doctor continued. “Please understand, I'm not telling you that I won't help you, but if there is some possibility that you or someone else could be hurt, there are other options that might serve you better in the long run. Might serve _him_ better, as well.”

You cleared your head with a small shake and smiled at the doctor.

“No. He won't hurt me.”

The doctor gave you another long stare, then nodded.

“Alright. Then, I suppose we should get started. Tell me... what is he like?”

 

-

 

   The house was as quiet as usual when you opened the door again. You were later than you had told him you would be, but only by ten minutes or so. You shut the door behind you, throwing your coat and bag aside and kicking off your shoes.

“Hello!” You called up the staircase. No answer. “I'm back!”

 

“ _You're late._ ”

 

You jumped and spun around. There hadn't been the usual creaks and groans of the walls that typically followed him moving about, yet he stood a few yards away, hiding in the shadow of another doorway.

“I know. I told you I might be a little late. I just-”

He disappeared fully into the other room. A 'thud' sounded, followed by a few rumbles and a flickering light near the top of the stairs, then silence.

You sighed, shoulders drooping. Certainly not the worst reaction he'd had to you running a little behind schedule, but it was also decidedly not as nice as the greeting you got when you came back on time. You could certainly have used one of those hugs right about then. The meeting with the doctor had gone well enough, but she had sent you back with plenty of “homework” now sitting in your black folder, and just the prospect of all that lay before you now that you had put your plan into motion had sapped most of your energy.

You trudged to the kitchen with the grocery bags, thinking about caffeine and sugar and curling up in bed.

The bags dropped.

“Oh,” you breathed out, staring at the pile of candy wrappers arranged in a mocking grin on the table. With the last little bit of energy you had been saving for putting the groceries away, you ran to the pantry, found the bag of candy to be gone as expected, and darted into each room of the house, looking for anything else gone amiss, stopping only when you had reached your room.

It was clear at once what was gone. The chest at the foot of your bed had been replaced with a single piece of paper. You picked it up, reading, in fine handwriting,

 

_'Don't talk about me to strangers.'_

 

So he had heard you on the phone. You sighed, energy sapped well and good, and let the paper fall to the floor as you fell onto the bed.

Was he really angry, then? Did he have something else planned for you? Was this just the first move?

 

Was it a mistake to set your plan into motion?

 

With a lack of energy comes a lack of control over one's thoughts, and yours ran wild as you lay prone on the covers. The doctor's words, in particular, echoed in your ears.

 

_Has he attacked anyone?_

 

You let out a short laugh but it caught in your throat and came out as more of a cough.

Had he hurt anyone?

 

 _Absolutely_.

 

He had destroyed at least two lives, that you knew of. There was always that possibility of more, but you didn't ask. Were afraid to. The more you dig, the more likely you are to find some skeletons, and there were an awful lot of closets in the mansion hiding all manor of bones from someone's disturbing past.

In the day-to-day life, it was easy to forget just whom you were sharing a home with.

 

A murderer.

 

The floorboards creaked. You didn't have to crane your head around much to see the dark figure nearby. A looming figure that would have been threatening if it weren't for the fact that it said your name in such a soft and sweetly concerned way. If it didn't get on its knees next to the bed. Didn't place its porcelain face inches from your own and rest the fingertips of one hand so softly to your cheek that you barely felt them.

“Are you okay?”

His usual child's voice had begun to slip, coming out halfway to the depth of a man's.

“I'm...” You sniffled, really wanting to not cry right then. Wanting nothing more than to just spill the whole story outright. The truth.

 

That you had done bad things, too; had felt the thick drip of blood running off of your hands as a bloody mistake lay at your feet.

That now you felt sorry for him. Protective of him.

That he terrified you. That he made you feel safe.

That you wanted to help him learn how to live, even if that meant living alone.

 

Without you.

 

“I'm just tired.” You smiled weakly. “That's all.”

The bed shifted, a depression forming that nearly had you rolling into him as he pulled himself up onto the bed next to you. A wall of solid warmth settled itself against your side, and he wrapped himself around you like he could shield you from everything, even if he didn't understand what it all was.

You breathed in and relaxed a little, feeling some of the strain melt away at the scent of the soap you had bought him a week ago, which he had made you believe had been thrown away out of spite for trying to teach him better hygiene.

“I'm sorry.” He whispered into your ear, his voice strange and muffled through the mask, and creeping all the time just a little closer to what should have been his natural deep tone. “I didn't mean to upset you. I didn't mean to.”

 

At the back of your head you made a mental note to add to the list both ' _genuinely affectionate_ ' and ' _shows remorse_ '.

 _Albeit, at times it's just to get what he wants, but sometimes he means it_ , you thought.

“I'm sorry, too,” you murmured into his collar, and he nestled his face into your shoulder.

 

A murderer, yes. But _your_ murderer. Your person. Damned if you weren't going to try to make things better for him.


	2. You're Dying to be Led

   Morning dawned and found you alone in your bed. You ran one hand over the expanse of blanket next to you, feeling the impression a body had left behind, but none of the warmth. He had been up for awhile.

 

Which meant you were running behind schedule.

 

You groaned, pushing yourself up and off the bed, tottering over to the bathroom to get washed up before heading downstairs for breakfast. Halfway down the stairs you remembered dropping the groceries last night and leaving the black folder in your bag by the door. Suddenly paranoid, you ducked your head into each room you passed and took a peek through your things.

Nothing looked different, except that the groceries you had dropped were no longer spilled across the kitchen floor. A quick peek in the cabinets showed that they had all been put away (although some items were in strange places and took a little rearranging). He had probably come down after you had fallen asleep and taken care of everything.

A little calmer now, you put the kettle on and went back to your bag for the folder. A list had been drawn up between you and the doctor of some basic things to tackle and questions to answer over the next couple of weeks leading up to another appointment. You took the page out and looked it over.

'Establish boundaries' was at the top of the list. This was something you had already been working on, with varying effects. With some annoyance you remembered the missing chest from your room.

'If boundaries have been established, does he respect them?'

You thought about the chest again and began to write out a large 'NO', but paused when you remembered that he had been creeping around the house while you were asleep and had not touched your bag, even knowing that you had been up to something and some clues as to 'what' you were up to were surely in there. It could have been a disaster if he had found the black folder, but he hadn't. You thought for a moment, then wrote in: 'Sometimes'.

You skimmed over a few lines as you made your way back to the kitchen, stopping at a group of interrelated questions:

'What is his physical state? Is he physically healthy? Does he exercise? Does he go outside for any length of time? Does he eat well?'

His physical state?

At a creak from the other room, you folded the paper up and slipped it into a front pocket. Brahms entered the room as you were taking the kettle off, a slope to his shoulders and narrowing of his eyes that said he was a little annoyed.

“I know I'm late and I'm very sorry,” you began before he could voice his displeasure at the lack of respect for his schedule. “But I thought I'd make it up to you by making pancakes today, AND-” you smiled over your shoulder at him, “-as a 'thank you' for putting the groceries away, I'll even put chocolate chips in them.”

That made him perk up, enough that he nodded enthusiastically when you asked if he wanted to help.

 

You thought over the doctor's questions as the two of you made breakfast.

What was his physical state?

The amount of running around in the house- up, down, and all across several stories, no less -had helped keep him lean (as well as an inconsistent appetite you had noted some time ago), but he did seem to have some trouble breathing. It was hard to say if that was from being out of shape, some other aspect of poor health, or if the mask he wore constantly hindered proper air-flow... or perhaps hid some deformity that made breathing difficult. He breathed hard almost constantly and all but panted when he was excited or had been particularly active. This would take a little more investigation. Later.

"You-" you snickered behind your hand. "You've got flour _all over_ your mask."

Brahms wiped at it, staring in confusion at the white smudge on his finger as you grabbed a hand towel to clean it up, and obediently leaned over so you could reach. 

“You've been up for awhile?” you asked as you made him up a plate of chocolate chip pancakes and scrambled eggs. He nodded but said nothing. “What've you been up to?” you pushed, taking a seat across from him with your own breakfast. He looked reluctant, or perhaps uncomfortable, but after a few seconds of silence and cutting up the stack of pancakes, he said

“... sewing.” He didn't elaborate, but gave you a pointed look as he pulled the chin of his mask away from his face.

“Oh?” You focused on your own plate out of politeness and habit. He had made it clear that he didn't like to be watched while he ate, and it had taken ages just to get him to eat in the same room as you. Not that you could see much but his hand holding the mask in place at an angle and his beard moving around it to the rhythm of chewing. “Are you fixing up your clothes again? Do you need anything?”

“No,” he said through his food, and you made a mental note to work on that bad habit.

The two of you ate in silence for a time as you kept your gaze low and your mind on a plan of action for the day.

'If he physically healthy?'

You knew trying to get him to exercise would be difficult and getting him in to see a physician or dentist would be impossible, but there were plenty of easier things that could be taken care of. Like hygiene.

He washed. You knew he did. He just didn't seem to wash particularly _well_ , was the thing. Clearly he wasn't totally against bettering his personal treatment, if his use of the soap you had bought him was any indication.

“So, I was thinking...” you swallowed hard around your food, feeling his steady gaze lock onto you. “Maybe we could work on the schedule a bit? Add some things in? Not a lot, just some little-”

His chair scooted back with a screech of wood on tile as he rose and left the room. A door slammed somewhere upstairs.

Damn.

 

   As an apology, you barely mentioned the schedule for the rest of the day, instead sticking to the already-established routine. You brought it up carefully a couple of times, but he ignored it all. On the bright side, no other "punishments" came. It seemed as though he was content to leave the phone calls about him alone. While he was having lunch you crept back to your room, sliding the black folder out to add:  _Forgiving_.

The problem- well, PART of the problem -was that he had already stolen the bargaining chip you had hoped to use for at least the next week or so. The bag of candy had yet to be found, and at that point you were willing to give up on looking for it. When he caught you with your nose in one potential hiding place or another, you could swear you heard him giggle.

So he went one more day without an additional activity added to the schedule.

 

   The next morning you awoke with a new approach forming in your head, and got straight to work. Once the kitchen had been cleaned after breakfast, you turned on him with hands on hips and a stubborn set to your jaw. He tensed and eyed you warily.

“Today, Brahms,” you began, putting as much of an unmovable force into your voice as possible. “Today, your hair is going to be washed. _Properly_.”

He stood slowly, on guard, and gave a low "No" in response.

“ _No_.” You repeated back, and he straightened a little, making himself look bigger. You pushed on. “I'm not going to fight you on this. It needs to be done and I've got an idea that I think you'll like, so this will go pretty nicely for both of us.”

THAT caught his attention. He relaxed a little, eyes going from sharp to wide and curious.

“What... idea?”

You smiled and answered,

“ _I_ am going to wash your hair for you.”

You were sure that behind his mask his jaw had dropped in a kind of wonder. He relaxed completely then, stepping closer until he was barely a foot away. 

“Really?”

“Yes!” You beamed, feeling victorious. “I know it's something you don't like to do yet, but it's really good for you and I think once you see how much nicer it will feel, you won't fight me on it so much. In fact, I'm _sure_ you won't.”

 

   You may have been getting a little ahead of yourself, but he didn't seem to mind or notice and this felt like a good start to the day. He let you take his hand and lead him away to the bathroom.

After a moment of worrying over just 'how' to wash his hair without having him strip and take a full shower with you in the room (an idea that brought a bit of heat to your cheeks, and thankfully he didn't notice), you discovered that the shower head could detach from the wall, letting you drag it to the ground. So, with a rolled towel in place to cradle his neck, you had him laying with his head in the shower stall and the rest of his long body stretched out on the floor.

“Just tilt it back a little... yes, like that.” You smiled down at him as he stared at you with his big eyes. “I'm going to go slow and try to not get any water in your eyes, but let me know if some gets in there, okay?”

A bit of unease had crept back into his eyes and the set of his shoulders, but once he felt your fingers running through his hair, massaging and working water and soap through, he relaxed completely and eventually closed his eyes in bliss. It came to be relaxing for you, too; you watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, felt the steam and heat working into your muscles and lungs, and couldn't help but smile. Your attention drifted, swallowed up in rhythm of the water on the tiles, the feel of clean hair rubbed between your fingers, his half-closed eyes watching you all the while. Stray droplets and moisture beaded his skin, leaving tiny drops on the curls of his chest and running down to dampen the edge of his shirt. Your eyes snapped back up from where they had wandered down his chest and he caught your gaze; you could swear he was smiling behind the mask, but the heavy-lidded look was hard to read. 

   It took a few minutes for you to realise that the last of the conditioner has dribbled off his locks and away down the drain, and you reached up to turn the water off.

“All done!” You announced with a smile. He blinked up at you, looking almost disappointed.

You jumped a little, crying out as he sat up quickly, water streaming and flying in all directions when his hair moved. Now that it was wet and totally lank, you could see just how long it was and wondered how much of a fight he would put up for a hair trim. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, though. He had liked this well enough.

To continue with your push to show him that this could all be enjoyable, you toweled his hair yourself, giving light little ruffles and shakes until his shoulders shook slightly from quiet laughter.

“Ok.” You pulled back, tossing the towel towards the laundry basket. “That's fine for now. It'll dry the rest of the way on its own. In the meantime, feel like helping me out with some chores?”

He shrugged noncommittally, slouching away from you, but didn't pull away when you dragged him up and out the door.

 

   He followed you like a puppy for the next couple of hours as you ran around doing chores. The doctor had said to "teach by example", and you wanted to set an example full of cleanliness and good habits. He didn't do much himself besides holding things for you sometimes, but you were hoping that just being around the activity would rub off on him. He disappeared at one point for lunch, and when he showed up again for afternoon reading you started at the sight of him and tripped on the carpet.

“What?” He asked, a little worried. You righted yourself and pointed to his head.

“Your _hair_.”

It was... _impossibly_ fluffy. Long, glorious dark curls rained down from his crown with a clean gloss. You couldn't help it. Your fingers ran through his hair.

 _Soft_. Thank God for conditioner.

He stared at you in awe and you noticed a smiling crinkle come into the corners of his eyes.

“It's good?” He murmured, fingers ghosting over yours, and you nodded.

“ _Very_ nice.”

 

-

 

He was loathe to admit it, but they had been right. The feeling of totally clean hair had absolutely been worth the trouble. Not that he hadn't cleaned it before, but apparently using only water and not soap just couldn't get all of the grime off. He couldn't stop touching it. _They_ couldn't either. Any time they passed by or turned to face him their hands inevitably rose and ran across and through his hair.

It was _wonderful_.

They went outside to check the garden and traps later, leaving the door open for fresh air, and he stood just inside the house, eyes closed, enjoying the feeling of the cool breeze streaming between each strand and across his scalp.

They came back in and, as expected, let their hands run across his hair. He returned the gesture this time, letting his hands smooth over their head and down until he could cup their face, feeling their cheeks fill out the hollows of his palms. Their smile faltered and they stuttered out something about needing his help in another room of the house. The sight of their blushed cheeks and the feeling of their warmth on his palms brought a lightness to his chest that he had to smile at. 

He wondered if he could get them to do this again.

 

-

 

   You scribbled 'wash hair' into his schedule for two days later, hoping that perhaps he would take the initiative and do it himself.

 

He did not.

 

Instead, when the time came he crept up to you and slyly pulled both of your hands to his hair.

“You can't do it yourself?” You asked, a little disappointed. He shook his head. “But you saw how I did it, right?” Another shake. “Oh. Your eyes were closed.” He nodded, eyes large and innocent. “Oh, alright. Fine. Let's go.” As you turned toward the stairs you thought you saw a look of victory in his eyes.

You grit your teeth and decided that this would be the last time.

 

   Three days later, when it came time for his hair to be washed again, he once more tried to get you to do it for him. You shook your head firmly.

“No, not this time, Brahms. I want you to take a good, long, full shower, ok? You can wash everything on your own. I _know_ you know how, this time.” You gave him a look and he had the grace to look bashful.

You set up the various toiletries and soaps along the edge of the shower stall, pointing out each and reminding him of what they were for; you knew he could just read the bottles, but he humoured you and nodded along anyway. As you grabbed a clean towel and set it on the bar, he pulled off his sweater, showing long, surprisingly well-worked arms. He set it aside and you thought he would wait until you were out of the room for the rest, but his fingers curled under the hem of his shirt and dragged upward, revealing sharp hipbones and curling hair over a relatively flat belly before you turned for the door, color creeping into your cheeks. He grabbed your hand.

 

“ _Stay_.”

 

You half-turned back, feeling your heart pounding in your ears over the feel a large, warm hand wrapped around your own, the thumb rubbing circles into your wrist. There was that temptation to just give in, to stay and see him peel off every layer of protection he clearly didn't feel the need to keep on with you anymore. You tried to think of excuses and finally landed on

“Uh, no, not this time, okay? I want you to take a _full_ shower, remember? That means _you have to take your mask off_.”

His eyes widened and he dropped your hand.

The room remained still as you slipped out and closed the door behind you, leaning on the wall next to it, hearing the various sounds of clothing being removed. There was a long silence, and then a slight ' _clack_ ', like something hard had been set on the counter.

As the water started, you tried not to think of how vulnerable he was right then. How easy it could be to tear him apart. All you had to do was open the door. All you had to do was see him without the mask.

A change in the rhythm of the water, as though its journey to the floor had been disrupted. It didn't sound like he was moving around. He must have been just... standing there. Fully under the stream of hot water, breathing steam, letting the heat work its way into his skin, enjoying the feeling of it through his hair, crashing on his shoulders, running down chest, streaming along his spine-

 

You pushed away from the wall.

 

_This isn't helping anything._

 

You paced through the mansion, roaming in and out of one room after another, into your own for a few minutes, trying for distractions but finding none. You wandered the house and tried not to think about anything. 

Of course that means you thought about everything you had pushed aside for weeks.

Like the man you were living with-

You tripped downstairs.

-the man who always stood so close, always wanted to _be_ so close-

You darted into a study.

-breathing over you, staring at you with a steady, wide-eyed gaze-

You glanced over the books, not reading a single title, and turned one way and another, no idea what to do.

-leaving lingering touches over your hands, your arms; holding you close when he was worried or when you were upset-

You threw yourself onto the leather sofa, enjoying the spare moment of clarity in your mind as the impact shocked the thoughts out of you.

But they came back, as did the uncertainties.

-long fingers running over the lines of your face-

 

There are many different kinds of affection. He had never shown any indication that he meant something more by his actions.

_Or had he, and you had just missed it?_

 

You wrapped your arms around your head, covering your face, and shivered. It was cold in the study, and you had left your coat upstairs. You shivered again, suddenly longing for heat. Overwhelming heat like-

-hot water, running rivers down his skin, the water becoming more and more familiar with the shape of him in its fall, unhindered, working through that trail of curls that led down from his chest, his belly, and-

 

You jumped as a soft voice called your name from barely three feet away.

“Are you okay?” Brahms asked in something close to his natural tone, usually a good sign he was genuine.

You groaned in response and he took it as a sign that you needed a little comforting. The couch creaked under his weight as he climbed over you, settling himself at your back, arms around you.

 

This didn't help, either.

 

He settled the both of you in a cloud of soapy scent and lingering heat and it was as relaxing as it was distressing.

It was even less helpful when you felt his masked face nuzzling into the small space between your bunched-up shoulder and your jaw, a small breeze of breath creeping around the edges of his mask to skip over the skin of your neck. Damp curls rested on your face and for a moment your world was swallowed in wet scent and breath. He whispered your name. You shivered again.

 

“... kiss?”

 

 _Oh_. Well, that answered _that_ question. Your eyes went wide behind the shield of your arms.

 

“ _Kiss_?” He repeated, nudging at your shoulder.

This had taken a turn. Just what had happened during that shower to bring this on? You shook your head sharply before your thoughts went further downhill, and promptly rolled yourself off the couch.

He was next to you in an instant as you righted and dusted yourself off, waving him away.

“I'm fine, I'm fine. Just... not feeling well.” You finished lamely, sure you hadn't convinced him at all. Especially not since his hands were on your arms, rubbing gently at your skin, the warmth of them sending goosebumps prickling all the way up to your shoulders, shivering down your back.

Something had to give.

“... kiss?” He tried again, his voice returning to a softer, higher pitch than was natural; the child's tone he used when he wanted something. Your skin crawled. You shrugged him off, arms slipping from his grasp, shaking your head.

“ _You are a **grown man** and you're not getting a goddamn thing from me if you keep talking like a damn **CHILD** ,_” you snapped, darting around him and running upstairs, just catching the pained look in his eyes as you moved past him.

 

   Your chest ached with guilt as you closed your bedroom door behind you. It certainly wasn't as harsh as you could have been, but he hadn't deserved that.

' _Establish boundaries_ ' the doctor had said, and being apparently _seduced_ by someone with the voice of an eight-year-old definitely crossed more than a couple of your boundaries. ' _Be patient_ ' she had said. It had only been just over a week since you had seen her. All you had managed to do was get him to shower properly. Surely a professional, in your place, could do much better? Just over a week, and you were snapping at him instead of praising him for his accomplishment.

You slumped into your bed, feeling defeated.

The house was quiet around you, and for a minute your thoughts went blissfully still.

 

_Be patient._

_Teach by example._

 

You sat up slowly, chewing over a thought.

You were trying to teach him to be an adult, so what sort of example were you setting by flying off the handle and running off? The ache in your chest intensified as you thought about him curling around you, expecting you to be so happy for him. _Proud_ of him. He had done a good job, hadn't he?

He was so eager to learn and change, when it was put forth in the right way. It wasn't right to respond to that enthusiasm with scorn. But maybe it wasn't too late to fix this mess you'd made.

 

-

 

   The leather creaked and groaned under him as he settled back down onto the couch. A door slammed upstairs.

They were angry.

_Why?_

He had done what they had asked; every bit of him was now clean, leaving him feeling light. Lighter than he had in years. It felt like being new. He had wanted to share that with them, his person; to wrap them in his arms and shower them with kisses and see them smile, hear their praises, feel their fingers running through his hair again.

Instead, he was alone. On an uncomfortable couch. The slight heat they had left behind on the leather left quickly and he felt cold, despite the recent shower. A sudden bitterness roiled in his belly and he made up his mind to head up to his own room, slamming all the doors on the way. 

Just as he reached the doorway out of the study, the space was suddenly filled with them. Their eyes were misty and red, as though they'd been fighting off tears. The bitterness left in a rush, replaced by concern.

"Sit... please." They said, and gestured back to the couch. He complied. They stood over him, hands wringing, and their words came out warbled and choked as they spoke. "I'm... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you. You did a good job, and I just wanted to tell you that I'm proud of you." They smiled. "You've done really well the past week, even though I've probably been really difficult with you, and I'm sorry, and... thank you." 

They hesitated, then leaned forward and placed a kiss to the top of his head, their face buried in his still-damp curls. All the lightness returned to his chest. He closed his eyes, just enjoying the feeling, until they tried to pull away.

"No," he grabbed at them, pulling them back and into his arms, on his lap, ignoring their squawk of surprise. "Stay here." He said, his voice cracking and breaking away from the child. " _Stay with me_." He said, and his voice was a man's. 

From under his chin, he felt them nod their head. 

"It's okay," they murmured. "It's alright. I'm not going anywhere."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is every chapter going to end with them cuddling? Probably!  
> Chapter title is from "The Latest Toughs" - Okkervil River


	3. A Ghost Came Unbidden

   The house was quiet as you came downstairs. You lifted off from the last step and heard a creak from just behind you. You spun around but- nothing. The staircase was empty. You tip-toed into the kitchen, feeling the silence pressing in more and more with each step until your skin was prickling with paranoia and nerves.

Something in the kitchen was off, but you couldn't quite put your finger on it. You set to work making breakfast, trying to ignore the growing unease. As you turned to grab a butter knife from the drawer, it finally struck you just what was wrong. All of the cutlery was gone.

“ _Oh_ ,” you said in a weak, wavering voice, nearly finishing with “shit” but deciding better of it when the looming figure moved into your periphery.

He stepped closer, slowly, the long knife in his hand coming into view as he rounded the counter.

“ _I can explain-!_ ” Your words were cut off as he lunged, one hand wrapping around your throat, lifting you up and pressing you against the wall, the knife rising to come level with your ribcage, the tip closing in, sliding easily through your shirt and pierc-

 

   Your eyes opened. The dark room said what you already knew to be true: it was still not morning. You let out a long, shaking breath, hands gripping the blankets and easily finding the creases they had left the last time you awoke.

_It's a bad day._

The tension from the dream lingered, and it took a few minutes to assure yourself that there was not actually anyone else in the room, and the only other person in the house did not actually have a reason to kill you.

In spite of that, it took you awhile to fall asleep again, and you once more woke in a sweat, barely an hour later. After one more failed attempt, you finally pushed yourself out of bed, giving up on sleep entirely. You crept downstairs to start the day early.

 

_It's a bad day._

 

   That thought hounded you since you woke up. Maybe it was the bad dreams that had started to slip from your memory but which had still left some unseen but perfectly felt mark on you. Maybe something in the house had changed and, while you couldn't see it, you could still 'feel' the shift; a grey fog settling over the house, thick and oppressive.

It should have been a good day. You had a lot you were going to take care of, you needed to be alert and productive. With that in mind, you made breakfast early.

And burnt everything. Even the water.

You cradled your face in your hands and a growl of frustration squeezed itself out of your mouth and between your fingers. The second attempt at cooking went better, although it was clear that everything was not up to the usual quality.

You set about packing your lunch and getting your things in order for work that day, wondering frequently just where Brahms was. Your missing chest still hadn't shown up, and there were a few papers hiding in it that you needed. He made himself mostly scarce that morning. You barely heard a shift in the house at all, and when the usual sounds of his movements did come they were not followed by the man himself. You were a little disappointed, but also relieved. It was the last day of work for awhile; a major project was being finished, which would leave you with at least a month and a half off for a break. Brahms knew about it, you having informed him of the coming schedule changes well in advance so that he would know what was happening.

Two hours after you gotten out of bed, you were ready to leave and there was still no sign of him. Your stomach began to churn, and you wondered if you had under-cooked something.

“Brahms?” You called up from the foot of the stairs. “I'm heading out!” Nothing. “I'll be gone about five hours!” Silence. “... I left your breakfast on the table!” Still nothing.

You shrugged. Perhaps he wasn't feeling well, either. You turned and went back to the door, trying to ignore the tension that had stayed in your shoulders all night and morning. The door opened on a misty view of the driveway, your car waiting just off the steps.

 

“No.”

 

A hand slapped against the door, closing it the few inches you had just opened it.

“Brahms-”

“ _No_.” He repeated, voice deepening a touch.

“We talked about this. I have to go to work. It's the last time I'll be gone so long for a few months. It'll only take me five hours, and _I'll be back_ -”

 _It's a bad day_ , you reminded yourself as you stared into the eye-holes of his mask, seeing the steady and fierce look in his eyes.

“ _NO_ ,” he repeated, voice now deep and forceful. “ _STAY._ _HERE_.”

Maybe it was the fact that you hadn't slept well or that you had burned the breakfast that morning or that your stomach was hurting or any number of other things, but a sudden annoyance and distress at this apparent regression of his behaviour after several weeks of progress won out over the doctor's voice ringing in your ear to 'have patience', and you gave the door a hard, sharp pull. It moved all of three inches before being slammed closed again.

“ _DAMNIT_ , Brahms, _I_ -!” He grabbed one of your wrists and dragged you away. “BRAHMS.”

He ignored you as you yelled and tugged on your hand and dug your heels in. You tripped all the way upstairs with his hand locked on you, his grip only loosening when he pulled you into your room and spun you out across the floor. While you were righting yourself, he locked the door and sat stubbornly in front of it, the key buried in his hand, arms crossed.

“ _BRAHMS_.” Your voice went deep, your own arms crossing over your chest, and resisted the urge the stomp angrily. He shook his head.

“You're not leaving.”

You were going to be late on a very important day of work. You had slept _very_ little and _very_ poorly and were _very_ tired because of that. You had first burnt breakfast and then under-cooked breakfast. Your stomach churned. It wasn't even eight in the morning.

“ _I. Am. Going. To. Work._ ” You ground out through your teeth.

“ _You're not going anywhere,_ ” he said, his voice taking on a low and dangerous tone.

“You can't keep me here!”

“I can.” He rose slowly to his feet. “I will.”

“What are you going to do? You can't just bully me to get your way, and you CANNOT keep me in this room!” Your voice grew steadily louder.

“I CAN keep you here. I can stop you from going anywhere. I can lock you away. I could break your legs.” His head tilted down, casting the holes in his mask in absolute shadow, painting his eyes straight black. “What could _you_ do to _me_?”

“You...” Voice a seething hiss, growing louder with each word till bellowing. “You think you're the only one here who could hurt someone? _You think you're the only one with blood on your hands? YOU THINK YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE IN THIS HOUSE WHO HAS EVER KILLED ANYONE?!_ ”

His head snapped back in shock, the shadows fleeing, eyes showing large and white. You dove for the key.

He was tall and very strong and neither of those things had been a problem for you since a few weeks after you had met him, but they were certainly a problem right then. He overpowered you easily, his strength only matched by your tension-fueled anger at being controlled like this on a day that didn't seem to be doing anything right. It got worse.

Somewhere in the scuffle you finally managed to get your fingers wrapped tight around the key, pulling it from his hand, and in his rage over losing it, he pushed. You tripped backward over the edge of a rug and everything went black.

 

   You awoke later, your head throbbing. Your eyes peeled open slowly and revealed your empty bedroom. Brahms was nowhere in sight, and the house was quiet.

Groaning over the pain in your head and stomach, you crawled to the bathroom, pulling yourself up with the sink. Disheveled, a bruise forming along the left side of your jaw, and with an egg growing at the back of your head, you didn't look or feel up to going to work. But the key was still in your hand. You collected your things and walked quietly, carefully downstairs, out the door, and into your car. A glance at your phone showed that you had been out for an hour, and were definitely running late. You looked back over the windows of the house as you pulled away, but they were all empty.

 

   Traffic was a nightmare. Your train was even later than usual. You arrived at work an hour late and, despite having called and explained the situation (minus Brahms), received a lengthy and heated lecture by your boss as soon as you entered the building. Several staff members were sick, putting more work on you to finish by the end of the day. What should have been five hours was stretched out to eight. The drive back was lengthened by a sudden downpour of rain, and your car choked, nearly dying entirely, after every mile.

The sight of the mansion, while usually welcoming, filled you with a sense of dread. You had vomited at work, but your stomach was still churning and on top of everything else you did not want to have another confrontation. You turned off the car and sat in silence, staring at the steering wheel.

 

There really wasn't any preparing for this. Might as well get it over with.

 

   The house was as quiet as you had left it. You dropped your bag and coat by the door and trudged into the kitchen. The breakfast that you had made up for Brahms was still on the table.

Just as well. If he had eaten it, he'd be sick, too. You threw it in the trash.

You left the kitchen, dragging your feet, and had your foot on the bottom step of the stairs before you saw him. Standing on the first landing, the set of his shoulders and look in his eyes unlike any you had seen before. You weren't sure what it meant, but it probably wasn't good. You hadn't been really scared of him in a long time. He took one step down and your nerves jumped, your pace quickening. Another step and you finally broke.

 

You cried.

 

In the seconds it took him to take the stairs down two or three at a time, your mind was caught in a steady stream of

_It's a bad day. It's a bad day. It's a bad day._

He arrived in front of you and you squeezed your eyes shut.

No pushes or shoves. No hands around your throat. No pain. Just two warm arms wrapped around your shoulders, burying your face in a warm chest. He trembled around you.

 

He was crying, too.

 

You both sunk slowly to the ground, each choking out apologies between sobs. Eventually you landed in a tangled heap at the bottom of the stairs.

“I...” He sniffled. “I had a bad dream.” You nodded.

“I did, too.”

“I couldn't sleep.”

“Me neither.”

“I was cold.”

“I ruined breakfast.”

“Rats got into my room.”

“I got sick.”

“Me, too."

“It was an awful day at work, and-” you sniffled. “I got a paper-cut.”

You shifted so that you could show him the bandage on your left index finger. He took it gently in one hand, pressing it to the lips of his mask and making little kissing sounds. You had to smile. The smile turned to low- then growing -laughter. His shoulders shook in a genuine laugh of his own, no trace of the usual childish giggle.

The two of you calmed down over the next couple of minutes, silence reigning for a time after, then he spoke.

“I'm sorry... I didn't mean to hurt you.”

“I'm sorry, too.” You reached out, smoothing a hand over the side of his mask. “I didn't mean to yell. We should have talked. We _both_ should have done better.” You breathed in deep, let it out slow. He did the same. “It was just a bad day, huh?” He nodded.

You lay in silence for another minute or two, and then he disentangled himself to sit up, turning so that you couldn't see his face past his shoulders. He took his mask off and wiped away his tears. You reached out for him, wanting to pull him back and show him that it was okay; he didn't need to hide from you.

Your hand lowered. That had to come when he was ready.

He replaced his mask and looked around the hallway, still sniffling a bit.

“I'm... hungry.”

Your stomach churned again at the thought of food, but at the back of your mind you knew you needed to eat something.

“I'm not really feeling up to cooking, but I'm sure we can figure out something,” you said, pushing yourself up to sit next to him.

“I can cook.” You must have looked shocked. You _were_ a little shocked. He saw this and added, “A little.”

He rose and walked to the kitchen to prove it. You trailed behind in silence, following a few steps behind as he wandered from cupboard to cupboard in the pantry, eyeing the store of foodstuffs. After a few minutes, he had settled on grilled cheese sandwiches and a can of tomato soup.

 

   Neither of you were quite used to working together on something like this, and it took some getting used to. Brahms, especially, was totally unused to cooking in the kitchen and frequently asked for help to find things.

“The pot's in the corner over there,” you gestured to his left.

“And... the cheese, uh... grate? Grater?”

“In the drawer near your hip.”

“Could you-?” He held the grater in one hand and a block of cheese in the other, waving both at you.

“Sure. I can handle this, if you want to get the soup started.”

Nothing burnt, aside from a few black specks on one side of one sandwich. It was warm and simple and good- all things that went over well on both of your upset stomachs.

 

   You were mopping up the last of the soup with a chunk of grilled cheese when your headache sidled its way back into your skull. You groaned, pushing away from the table to fish through the drawers for the painkillers.

“What's wrong?” He asked as you popped two into your mouth with some water. A little annoyance slipped back in, too.

“My head... _got_ _hurt_ when you pushed me.”

His whole frame shrunk, head lowering in guilt. A part of you felt an urge to comfort him. Another part said ' _Good_ '.

“I'm...” You sighed, rubbing your forehead. “I'm gonna go lie down.”

The couch in the study nearby was horribly uncomfortable, but it was better than the floor. You settled down on your back, arms draped over your face to shut out the little light in the room. Faint sounds drifted in from the direction of the kitchen. Half an hour later the pills had kicked in, the throbbing in your head ebbing and then dying out completely. You rose and went back to the kitchen.

 

It was... _clean_.

 

The dishes were washed and drying, the counters and table had been wiped off, and the small amount of food that had been left over was packaged and in the refrigerator. What's more- sitting in the middle of the table, looking rather smaller than you had seen it last, was the bag of candy. The house was silent when you went back upstairs to your room, but a small gasp momentarily broke it when you saw what else had been left for you. The chest sat in its original spot at the foot of your bed, totally unharmed and un-tampered-with.

It didn't really fix anything. This had still been a bad day which had worn you both done to nothing and brought up a few things that very clearly needed to be worked on. But... it was something. If nothing else, it was a good sign that he was moving in the right direction.

 

   You settled in for the night. Your head and stomach had both settled considerably, and for a while it seemed like you would be able to sleep peacefully.

The nightmares came back, bloody, brutal, and jarring. Ghosts chased you between dreams and wrapped their pale hands around your throat.

You lay awake sometime past midnight after the third had jolted you out of sleep. It was cold, despite your blankets, and the emptiness of the large bed suddenly seemed overwhelming. You thought of Brahms.

You hesitated, then slid out of bed and tip-toed to the wall where he usually appeared from some hidden passage or another. You pressed your hands to it, almost expecting it to give way for you, and brought the knuckles of one hand to rest on its surface. You stopped yourself.

It was late. He was probably already asleep. Even if he wasn't, there was no reason to believe he would run down just because you knocked, or that he could hear you. You pressed both palms, letting your forehead follow soon after. It would be so much easier if he would just show up on his own, like he usually did. He seemed to have a good idea for when you most needed the comfort of arms wrapped around you, or warmth.

The house was quiet. You sighed and returned to your too-large, too-empty bed. The ghosts crept back in.

 

-

 

   He lay in his bed, staring up at the ceiling, feeling the sweat on his chest and face from another fevered dream. The bed was over-warm, even with the blankets kicked off. It being much too small for him didn't help, either. He thought of his person, asleep downstairs in a nice big bed with a space beside them- a space he was always more than happy to take up, and longed for now. There was space enough to stretch out, and a body to curl up around.

The house was quiet. He wanted them to want him there just as much as he did, but it was... _quiet_. No knocks on the walls, no one calling his name softly into the night. He thought for a moment about going down anyway, creeping into their room and letting himself in under the covers, finding them waiting with open arms like always. He almost got out of bed to go do it, too. But...

But he was always doing that. He wanted...

He sighed to himself.

He wanted- to _be_ wanted. He wanted someone to not just accept the affection he bestowed on them and return whatever was given, but to _ask_ for it. To _give_ it as willingly as he did.

He closed his eyes and imagined them in his sanctuary, leading him away from the cramped bed and out into the house, down hallways and stairways and into some space just right for the both of them. He imagined them holding him close, of their own accord, peppering his face with kisses and telling him how much they-

He shook his head.

It was nice to imagine, but the longing stretched the hours and he was dreadfully tired already. After a little tossing and turning, he finally gave up on the bed entirely. The floor was uncomfortable, even with blankets spread across it, but at least he fit on it properly.

The fantasies crept back in and he let them with little fight. Dreams of sweet skin, their mouth on his, hands roaming to know each other in every intimate way. Welcoming spaces and pushing everything between them aside in favor of heated proximity.

He closed his eyes and let out a low, shuddering breath. 

The house was quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided to nix the cuddles, because different flavors of longing are much better.  
> Thank you to everyone who has commented or left kudos. I was a little unsure about posting this story, and I really appreciate the positive feedback!  
> Chapter title from "Another Radio Song" - Okkervil River


	4. A Black Sheep Boy Dissolves

“It sounds like he's taking well to you establishing some boundaries, but what about the next one down?” The doctor tapped at her own copy of the list, and you went down to the next line.

“ _'Does he have any hobbies'_?”

“Mhmm.”

“He... does, actually,” you perked up a bit when you thought about it. “He sews a lot, and he's mentioned other things here and there... mostly crafts. He's asked me for thread, yarn, and glue before. I haven't been able to SEE him working on anything. He has a, uh... a kind of sanctuary, I guess. He doesn't let me in, but it's where he does all of his work.”

“That's fine. It's good to have a place where you can retreat and feel safe. I wouldn't try to get in there if you can help it. Not unless he invites you in, at least. You have your boundaries and he has his, right?” You nodded and she continued. “Okay, what about the next one?” You looked down the list and froze. The doctor glanced between the paper in your hand and your face, finally snapping you out of it with a slightly louder-than-usual, “Well?”

“... _'What is his view of you?'_ ”

“Yes, that's the one. It's _very_ important to understand just what the relationship between the two of you is.”

“ _Relationship_?!” Your voice cracked a little and the doctor gave you a strange look.

“I'd like to remind you that 'relationship' does not necessarily mean 'romance'. He could view you as a friend, a sibling, a parent... What do you think?”

“I think...”

You did think. You thought about him crawling into your bed in the middle of the night, bending his body to match the curve of yours; pulling you close when you were upset or when he was happy; cupping your face when you ran your fingers through his freshly-washed-and-dried hair; nudging at your shoulder with a soft plea of 'kiss?'.

“I think,” you began again, “that he... he probably views me as a friend... I guess? It's kind of hard to tell, and I'm not sure he would give me a straight answer if I were to ask.” You laughed a little, _hoping_ you sounded convincing but suspecting that you did _not_.

“He trusts you, he cares about you...?”

“Yes.” You nodded. “Yes, absolutely. We get along fine, and while we have had a couple of hiccups, he's been very open to everything I've been trying with him.”

“Hiccups?” She leaned forward in her chair, looking worried. “Like what?”

You back-pedaled.

“Oh, nothing too serious!” you laughed, rubbing the back of your head and feeling the still-healing bump. It had only been a few days. “He doesn't always want to cooperate, but we manage to work everything out in the end.”

The doctor smiled and sat back again, setting her pad of paper aside.

“Good! Very good. It sounds like he's been progressing well.” She tapped her lip twice, then continued, “I think for the next few weeks I'd like you to work on expanding on those things you've already done. You said that you'll go outside and leave the door open so that he can get some fresh air? So, try to get him to go outside. It doesn't have to be anything extreme; he doesn't need to go into town or across the country right off the bat. Even just taking a few steps out is fine. He's been open to improving his hygiene, so encouraging that would be good. He follows you while you do chores, but does he actually _help_?”

“Uh... a little? Not much. He might hold something or move things around for me, but he won't do much _actual_ cleaning.”

“Something else to work on, then. Just remember to start small, and build up gradually. If you feel like you've hit a wall, then it's okay to back off and bring it up with me at the next appointment. We'll get it figured out.”

She nodded reassuringly at you, and smiled and waved when you walked out the door. Once the next appointment had been schedule with the receptionist, you went out to your car and just... sat. It was calm and quiet, the noises of traffic distant. You felt a little guilty, and pushed aside the feeling that you had lied to the doctor on more than one detail. If she had worked out the truth, she hadn't said anything about it, but your chest felt tight with it all the same.

The appointment had gone quicker than you had thought it would, and you didn't have to be back to the mansion for another hour or so. Drumming your fingers on the steering wheel in thought for a bit, you eventually decided on a course of action with your extra time, turned the key, and took off.

 

   An hour later on the dot, you opened the front door and had barely made it inside before you were enveloped in solid hug, complete with a mask-nuzzle to your hair.

“You're not late!” He chirped happily.

“I'm not late!” You smiled up at him, detaching yourself and shuffling the bags you were holding behind you before he could see what was in them. He spotted them instantly and his eyes widened in curiosity.

“What did you get?” He asked, pouncing on one and only just missing it as you spun out of the way.

“I can't tell you. At least, not yet.” He bent around you to get a better look and you took a step away from him. “They're for later.”

“For... me?”

“Uh-huh,” you nodded. “There are some things I want to take care of this week, and,” you paused for a breath, trying to decide how to word things for the best effect. “If... if you're a _good boy_ , and you help me out, I'll give them to you.”

You hated using any babying speech, but the doctor had said to take it slow and you knew it was still what he was most comfortable with. He looked downright giddy.

“Presents?!”

“Yes, Brahms,” you smiled. “Presents! But only if you're good and do what I say, alright?” He nodded vigorously. “AND, just to give you a little taste of what you have to look forward to,” you carefully shuffled the bags around until you could get a grip on a small one, and held it out to him. “Here!”

He tore it out of your hand and ripped into it, wrapping paper flying. In only a few seconds, he had the first gift in his hands- a new pair of trousers. He held them carefully, like he was afraid they would break.

“I know they don't look like much,” you explained, a little worried that maybe he didn't really like them like you had hoped. “but I think you'll be very happy with them once you put them on.”

He was gone in an instant. You heard the thuds and slams of floors and doors as he made his way back to his sanctuary. You took the opportunity to run upstairs to your room and hide the rest of the presents in the chest at the foot of your bed.

Just as you were leaving the room, you were once again assaulted by an overly-enthusiastic and lanky man. For a moment you couldn't breathe, but you heard very clearly the many 'thank you's he rambled into your ear. It took a minute to get him to calm down enough that you could pull back and get a good look.

 

They fit perfectly.

 

The pants he had been wearing before had been much too short for his long legs, and had originally been too tight around the waist as well. Even with adjustments, they'd had a very poor fit and were wearing through in places. These, however, were long enough that he had had to roll the legs up once to keep them from dragging on the ground, and slim through the legs but with enough space that he could move comfortably. He was skinnier through the waist than you had thought when guessing his measurements, causing him to need a belt to hold it all up, but all in all they were a good fit. He looked happy and you couldn't help but to smile at him.

“They look good!” you said, and his eyes squinted in a smile. “Are they comfortable?” Several rapid nods in response. “Good! Now, remember: I have more presents for you like this one, but you'll only get them if you help me out a bit. Deal?” Another eager nod. You grinned and took his hand. “Alright. Let's get to cleaning, then.”

 

   There was a palpable shift in the house over the following week. If an outsider were looking in, there was nothing strange going on. To you, it was obvious.

Both of you had more patience with each other. You found yourself calming down when frustration or disappointment crept in, and you found him more and more willing to put up with you trying to change and embellish his lifestyle. With very little nagging, you managed to get him to spend a few minutes each day sweeping or wiping down surfaces in different rooms- extra help you greatly appreciated, considering the size of the mansion and number of rooms, all of which you had had to clean by yourself before.

His care of himself was getting better all the time, as well. Four days after the appointment you had him showering every day, with plans to tackle hair and beard trims in the near future. You weren't sure if he quite understood that it was for his own good, or if he was mostly only cooperating because you made sure to praise and compliment him every time he did what he was supposed to, but maybe it didn't matter either way. As long as it was all getting done.

There was all of that... and then there was more. The touching had increased, as had the amount of times he would find some excuse to pull you into his arms. It was rarely casual. There was never really a time where he'd have a hand at the small of your back, your hand, or your arm out of habit or accident. There was always something lingering there, some slight pressure or massaging motion that let you know he meant something by it. He listened to you when you mentioned his child's voice, and while he still slipped back into using it sometimes, he made more of an effort to stop. Most of the time it came out as somewhere between the child and his natural tone.

By the fifth day since you had given him the new trousers, he had received another pair of pants, two shirts, and a thick scarf that he had had a rather cheeky reaction to that you weren't entirely sure the meaning of. When you tried asking him about it, he simply leaned over and nuzzled his mask into your hair, making kissing sounds. You had blushed and gently pushed him away, claiming there was more you had to get done that day.

 

   Monday came. Grocery day, and he seemed a little more at ease about you leaving than he had in the past. You hoped this was a good sign that he would get better about you not being around in the future. Traffic was good and you made it back to the mansion earlier than usual, catching Brahms off guard as you entered with your arms full of grocery bags.

 

-

 

   He froze halfway across the entrance hall, face turned to the front door. Which was open. With his person standing in front of it. His eyes met theirs and went wide.

“Is that... my scarf?” They asked, stepping closer, and he was torn between giving up the game or turning tail. “ _My scarf that I've been missing for a month?!”_

Flight won out. He turned on his heel sped off into the house, unable to smother a cackle, hearing a cry of shocked frustration behind him, the thuds of their bags hitting the floor, and slower feet on the floorboards tearing after him.

It would have been too easy to escape into the walls, so he slipped into a library on the second floor instead, far enough ahead of them that they didn't see which door he went through and zipped past his hiding spot. He waited until their footsteps led into another room down the hall, before tip-toeing back out the door and downstairs.

Clearly they didn't see or hear him as he made his way down, as their stomping feet remained on the top-most floors of the house, and he was able to sneak back into the study with the uncomfortable couch and hide the scarf back under the dictionary in the bottom drawer of the desk.

He giggled to himself at the sound of his person upstairs banging on the walls and shouting for him, and went back out into the hall to collect the grocery bags. He managed to get everything put away and dart back into the hall by the time they had realised he was back on the ground floor, and when they had jumped off the last step and ran over to him, he was standing with his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes wide, the picture of innocence.

“ _BRAHMS_ ,” they panted, crossing their arms over their heaving chest. “Where is my scarf?!” He shrugged, and they whined out his name again. “But I just got you a scarf! Why can't I have mine back?” He shrugged again, head tilting as he suddenly became very interested in a painting on the wall, seemingly utterly disinterested in the whole issue.

As expected, his person became even more exasperated.

“Alright, what if I give you something for it?” They had his attention again. “The candy?” And... they lost it. He swung his arms gently at his sides and stepped easily around them. “Ok! Ok, wait. I... I don't have a lot of presents left and I was kind of hoping to save them for later, but I could give you one of those for it?” He walked away. “WAIT! Wait, please. Ok, how about...” He stopped and half-turned back, seeing them take a deep breath.

 

“What if I gave you... a kiss?”

 

-

 

   You watched his eyes grow large in the holes of his mask.

“Is that what you want? A kiss?”

You were shaking a bit, and a little unsure of how exactly this would go, even more so when he practically jumped on you. The porcelain face tilted toward you, pausing as confusion and hurt filled his eyes when you jerked away from it.

“No, that's not what I meant.”

You did want your scarf back, but not at the expense of letting go of some of your boundaries. The childish persona he still clung to at times, including the mask, was one such boundary. You had to think about this. He started to pull away, clearly upset, and you gripped his arms to keep him from going anywhere, your mind racing. Sure, a kiss was what he wanted, and _had_ wanted for awhile.

Was it something _you_ wanted?

There was a tension that had built up in your shoulders every time he had tried to show you affection and you had pushed him away out of fear of what it all might lead to if you just gave in. It all fled as you rested your head against his chest, breathing out slowly.

Yes. Yes, you definitely did want this. You felt his heart beating a calming rhythm through your skull, and pulled back slightly.

“Brahms,” you began, staring at his shirt. “I... I didn't mean it like that. I want to kiss you,” you looked up to his face, his mask, and saw joy come into his eyes. “But... I want to kiss _you_. Understand? Not _your mask_.”

He jerked back like he had been struck, looking wounded again. You back-pedaled.

“But, you know...” You took a deep breath and pressed forward. “It's not like your mask is covering _all of you_ , right?” A series of emotions went rapid-fire through him, too fast to catch, and you smiled shyly, taking his hand. “Come with me.”

You led him down the hall and into a small sitting room, turning to face him once you had reached the center. You paused. The height was a bit of an issue. A quick glance around showed a chair with no arm rests nearby, against the wall. You brought him to it.

“Sit, please.” He scrambled to obey, although his movements became a little shaky, a little uncertain. You were shaking, too, and wondering if this had perhaps not been the best idea. He stared at you, excited and anxious. Too late to back out, now.

Carefully, with a little help from him once he realised what you were doing, you settled down to sit straddling his lap, facing him, your legs on either side of his. He looked down, studying the whole situation, and swallowed hard.

There was a moment of being unsure where to go from there, but then you leaned in, watching as his eyes fluttered closed, and skimmed your mouth over the mask, leading down until you reached the edge of it, curls of beard scratching at your lips. Your breath skipped over his skin and you felt him shiver, his pulse jumping in your palm as you cupped his neck on one side, your mouth grazing the other. You paused, hovering for a moment, enjoying the feeling of his whole body under you tense with anticipation.

When your mouth closed firmly onto his throat, his body seized up, a great shudder running through the whole of him as something between a sigh and a whine squeezed itself out from behind his mask. You realised all of a sudden that no one had probably ever done this with him before, and were quick to follow up with another kiss just below the first, sucking lightly at the skin and smiling into it when his breath caught in his throat.

You pulled back, laughing when he let out a cry of protest and tried to pull you back in.

“Was that okay?” You asked and he nodded, chest heaving and eyes boring into you. You frowned a little. “Talk to me, Brahms.” He was silent for a moment, then said

“It was... it was... very good.”

You smiled then cautiously, quietly, asked,

“What do you want, Brahms?” Silence again as he stared at you and took a deep breath.

“I want...” Hard swallow. “I want... more.” His breathing evened out slowly, his hands running up and down your arms. “I want you.”

Your heart skipped a beat and your jaw went slack. He took the opportunity afforded by your shock to lean forward, closer to you, and cup your face in one hand, the thumb running along your bottom lip, and nuzzled his masked face into your neck.

“What do you want?” He asked softly into your throat and pulled back until there was scarcely an inch between his mask and your face.

“I...” You gulped. The tension in your shoulders, the feeling like you should be pushing him away, came back full force. Didn't this complicate things? If you gave in to your feelings- if you admitted them out loud -what would that lead to? He whispered your name and repeated,

“What do you want?”

 

Oh, to Hell with it.

 

“I want you, too.” You whispered.

He fixed you with a familiar look, something clear and warm, soft yet intense.

 

 _Adoration_.

Like he would trust you with his heart between your teeth; like he would put it there himself.

 

He pulled you in, pressing his masked face over your neck and shoulders, making kissing sounds, running his hands through your hair and down your back.

“Brahms-” He didn't seem to hear you, and continued with his hand pushing in under your shirt. “Brahms!” You grabbed his wrist to stop him going higher. “ _The mask._ ” His head jerked back, a sudden sadness filling his eyes, and he shook his head. “Brahms, _please_. The mask-”

“I... can't.” His head kept shaking back and forth as he pushed you carefully off of him and fled the room, repeating “ _I can't_ ” over and over until he disappeared into the walls. A few seconds of thuds and the slamming of doors, and then silence reigned in the mansion.

 

You sat on the floor.

That all went in a very different direction than you had meant it to. You sank backwards until you were stretched out on the carpet and stared at the ceiling.

The doctor had said it was important to establish and respect boundaries. The problem was that you had discovered a point where your boundaries clashed with those of Brahms. It didn't seem like a good situation.

You closed your eyes and let yourself relax, your mind going blank. This only lasted a few minutes before you pushed yourself up again. It was late. You needed to eat.

The house was silent as you prepared a simple dinner, was still silent all while you ate, and remained so when you made your way upstairs to your room.

 

   The next two hours were spent desperately trying to focus on anything but what had happened earlier. Work papers for the project starting in over a month were glanced at and discarded in the same second. Books were opened and then immediately closed. You changed your sheets, although you didn't need to. Eventually you gave up looking for distractions and settled on just going to bed early.

You changed into your pajamas, brushed your teeth, crawled into bed and

 

you weren't tired. Not in the least.

The more you lay in bed, the more you felt with increasing clarity the dark and empty space around you, the same old ghosts creeping in and scratching at your skull. 

You jumped out of bed and ran to your bathroom, flipping the light switch and slamming the door shut, leaning against it. It didn't help much; you could still feel them pressing in on the edge of your mind. You pushed away from the door, collapsing against the wall near the bathtub and banging twice on it. You didn't care if he was asleep or awake, wearing the mask or not. You didn't want to be alone. You banged again, calling out his name in an upsettingly strained voice. When a minute of silence had passed you gave up on that idea too.

With shaking hands you started to draw a bath of lukewarm water, changing your mind when it was only a few inches deep and switching to the shower head instead. You hesitated, then climbed in, curling into a ball at one end of the tub. Your clothes were soaked in a second.

The waterline was just above your ankle, the shower aimed at your legs. The rhythm and the temperature of the water falling eased some of the anxiety in your brain, but not all. You covered your face with your arms, hands finding and clinging to the porcelain edge near your head.

 

   The water at the other end of the tub sloshed, the water level rising and the flow from the shower head blocked from reaching you. A soft voice whispered your name with worry.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have disturbed you.” You mumbled into your arm. “I'll be fine. You can go.”

“I don't want to go.” He spoke quietly, his voice muffled, but you head him clearly as he leaned over your legs, face next to your arms. “Do you want me to leave?”

 _What do you want?_   His voice echoed in your head and you sighed.

 

“I... want you to stay.”

 

One hand rested gently on your arm, tugging at the elbow. You shook your head and buried your head further into your arms. He drew back.

A faint, foreign sound, and then you felt something on your shoulder; something warm and a little rough, pressing into your skin and then pulling back slightly. Breath crawled over your arm.

“ _Please_.” He said, his voice clear for the first time; deep and unhindered by any covering. Your eyes widened behind your arms. He continued down your shoulder and along your arms, kissing lightly as he went, murmuring “ _please_ ” after every contact. You slid your arms aside.

He was still wearing the mask... sort of. He had pushed it up, one hand holding it in place so that the bottom edge of it hovered over his upper lip. But his chin, his mouth, and most of his cheeks were bare.

 

It was clear at once why he refused to take it off entirely in front of you. Heavy scarring marred the right side of his face, twisting the skin into stiff lines that led halfway down his cheek, with lighter scarring spreading to the corner of his mouth. The damage looked to be worse higher up, still hidden by the mask and his hand. Thin, cracked lips were parted and he breathed heavily.

Slowly, cautiously, your hand rose. When your fingertips met his lips, a great sigh escaped him and his whole body relaxed. Your fingers traced the line of his mouth, ran lightly over the scars of his cheek, and finally came to rest over the hand holding the mask. Your other hand took his chin and pulled him in for what had to be his first kiss.

His lips were rough and moved slow and stiff with inexperience. You coaxed him, kissing again and again until he understood what to do. With each kiss he seemed to gain confidence, and broke off from your mouth to trail kisses down your neck, repeating his motions from the sitting room earlier, free hand eventually wandering to your pajamas.

“Brahms,” you stopped him again. “This isn't... it isn't going to work. Your mask-” He slumped backward, chest heaving, mask sliding back into place. When the eye-holes had moved back over his eyes, he didn't look as hurt this time. Instead, he looked like he was thinking. You encouraged him, saying, “I won't look... if you take it off... we can figure out some way to-”

He pushed himself up and out of the bath, water splashing across the floor, and left the bathroom, the door swinging wide on your bedroom. You curled inward again, your stomach sinking.

 

But he didn't leave your room.

 

The position of the tub was such that you couldn't see him, but as you watched the one wall that was visible to you, lit with bright moonlight, slowly dimmed, and then went dark completely. He came back into the bathroom and wordlessly turned the water off, pulled you from the tub, and led you out into the room, soaking the carpet, turning the bathroom light off as you went.

You stumbled into him. He had pulled the curtains over the windows, leaving the room pitch-black. You could barely see the outline of him, but he took your hands and gently led you to your bed, guiding you so that you found the edge of it without hurting yourself. You watched his outline and he walked to your nightstand, his back to you, and a second later the mask was set down.

Your heart jumped to your throat. He turned to face you and while it was too dark to see his face, it was the idea of it that had your pulse picking up. This was the first time he had ever stood before you without his mask. You reached out to him, letting your hands find his face and wander over the last of it that had been hidden to you.

 

The thick scarring was there on the right side, as you had expected, and it spread across his nose, too, warping it slightly. The left side seemed relatively normal. The damage was not contained to his face, either. You pushed his sweater off of his shoulders and felt that same thick-lined-distortion of skin near the back of his right shoulder, as though he had huddled, face half-hidden behind it, when whatever had caused this came. 

He seemed to sense some of your hesitation, and in desperation for not having you back out from pity he yanked your hands away and lifted you up onto the bed, bringing you to sit on the edge of it with his narrow hips tucked between your thighs, drawing you into another, harder, more confident kiss. 

His movements were unpracticed and sloppy, driven more on base instinct than experience. But what he _lacked_ in experience, he more than made up for in enthusiasm. He dove in head-first like the world was ending around you, ate at you like he was starving, swallowed your breath like it was the only thing that could save him. You pushed him back, dizzy and gasping for air.

 " _Can't breathe... can't breathe..._ " you whispered between deep breaths. He pulled back for a second, a palm over your belly with the fingers splayed out and slipping under the line of your underwear, the other hand halfway through pushing your nightshirt over your chest. He leaned in again, whispering into your mouth with every trace of the childlike voice gone,

"Then _don't_."

 

   For all the inexperience-driven hangups and stumbling blocks, there was a certain thrill to watching him go through everything for the first time. Every touch brought out a shiver or a moan sounding out his long-suffering loneliness, and he responded each time by diving a little deeper, gripping a little harder. Each time he touched you it was something new, some form of exploration with the fervent desire of knowing every inch, every crevice and swell, each way that the two of you were similar and different, with hands that knew what they wanted to do but not quite how to do it. He all but tore your pajamas from your body, and _did_ completely tear your underwear from your hips. You were more gentle with his clothes, tossing each water-logged piece to the floor to land wet heaps on the ground, until he was sitting before you on the bed, your legs drawn up and over his, his skin slick with shower water and sweat. 

 You guided him and he let you, your hand leading his around, placing his palm or his fingers just so. His own hands shook when he guided you in turn, showing you every way he had always wanted to be touched by someone else, frame shuddering, bent into you with a strained, open-mouthed cry smothered into your shoulder as your hands worked over him. Your fingers ran through the thick hair on his chest, feeling his heart hammering, while your other hand pulsed and smoothed itself down, cupping him at the base and massaging your way back up, his jittering fingers feebly encouraging yours. You murmured into his ear that he was beautiful, wonderful, and his hips jerked, his body shivering with the praise. His own voice, deep as you'd ever heard it, all but failed him; he could stammer out little more than broken sounds, half-formed words, and hazy-minded encouragements.

When he finally slid into you he was overcome for a minute, face buried into the crook of your neck. When he pulled back again, his lips finding yours, you felt a tear drip onto your cheek. You set the pace at the start until he had gotten the hang of the rhythm and motion, then he buried himself in you with shaking enthusiasm, moaning each time you encouraged him, told him he was incredible, or how good it all felt. 

He shuddered into you, crying out low and ragged into your shoulder, your fingers tangled in his hair. 

   For a while the only sounds were heavy breathing. You almost couldn't breathe, yourself, with him collapsed on top of you, his chest hair scratching across your skin with every breath. When he seemed to have nearly caught his breath, you stroked the side of his face.

"Brahms?" You spoke quietly into his ear. "You can pull out now." 

He shook his head.

"Don't want to." His voice was low and tired. You humoured him, letting him lay still buried inside of you. Eventually he did pull himself away, flopping over on his side next to you. You turned to face him, your hand finding his cheek and your thumb wiping away the last of the tears. 

"Are you okay?" 

He nodded, and you felt him smile and turn his face to kiss your palm.

"I'm _wonderful_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good golly, this one got a bit long, didn't it?  
> I am sorry if anyone was expecting full-blown smut, but I am actually not comfortable writing anything so explicit. So this was... borderline? I guess?  
> Chapter title is from "So Come Back, I am Waiting" - Okkervil River. If you can guess where I yoinked the "I can't breathe"/"then don't" bit from, idk man I'll write something for you with the next chapter, maybe


	5. Just to Make Themselves Known

Soft.

Everything felt soft.

Your eyes opened and for a moment the old dread roiled in your gut, saying that this was another bad night and morning hadn't come yet. But as you blinked the fog of sleep from your eyes and the far wall came in clearer detail, you realised that it only seemed dark because the window was still covered. Narrow rays of pale light slipped through the cracks, casting your room in a faint, dreamy glow. It was morning, and you had slept through the night with no nightmares.

You breathed in deep, let it out slow, and simply lay enjoying the feeling of being relaxed with a clear mind.

Although your mind didn't stay clear for long.

Memories started to slide gently in, reminding you of the day before; a kiss, a mask shed in the dark, bare skin and guiding hands and-

You swallowed, wondering briefly if it had all actually just been a dream. You shifted your body under the sheets, feeling the unhindered contact on your skin. Slowly, almost afraid of what you might see, you turned yourself over and onto your other side, your back to the window.

He was still there, eyes closed, lying on his side with one arm bent and the hand resting on the pillow between you, the other arm draped over his torso. His mask was back in place, but otherwise he was in much the same state as you were; hair a mess of curls, skin sticky with old sweat.

What little light that made it into the room around the curtains was still enough to show you more of him than you had been able to make out the night before. If nothing else, it gave you a visual to what you had felt. Now that you could see it properly, the scars toward the back of his right shoulder were all raised, pale lines with darker pink valleys in between. They looked almost like burn scars, and with a start you remembered the view from outside the manor of the blackened wall around the shuttered attic window. Without thinking, you brought a hand up to run your fingers lightly over the damaged skin, and his eyes behind his mask slowly opened.

There was a minute of silence as he seemed to go through the same process you had. His eyes blinked slowly, gaze wandering around the room, seeing himself, and then settling on you. You mustered up an uncertain smile and quietly said,

“Good morning?”

His eyes turned in a smile. From the hallway came the sound of one of the clocks. You both froze, counting the chimes.

“It's... nine o'clock,” you murmured, partially in awe and partially in horror. Both of you were running about two hours behind Brahms' schedule. You stared at him as he seemed to realise this, and then shrugged and pulled you in to him again.

 

   It took another hour to get out of bed. Every time one of you started to pull away, you wound up collapsing right back into the other, whichever of you was still on the bed more than happy to welcome their partner back to the warmth of the blankets.

Eventually you were able to skip downstairs in fresh, dry pajamas, Brahms trailed after you a minute or two later, one of your towels wrapped tightly around his waist.

“What sounds good for breakfast?” you asked through a yawn, waiting patiently while he looked through the pantry and made various thinking “hmm”s. He straightened, looked back to you, and shrugged. “Ok, well...” You thought for a moment, then smiled at him. “I think it's a chocolate chip pancake kind of morning.”

 

Brahms, as you discovered, had a habit of always getting flour all over his mask. You weren't even sure how he did it. One second everything was fine, but you would turn away to grab or set something down and as soon as you turned back there was a smudge of white across one cheek, or across his forehead, half-hidden by curls. It was easy enough to clean flour from porcelain, but the smears of white would inevitably reappear minutes later. If you didn't know better, you'd guess he was doing it on purpose.

“There is going to be more flour on your face than there is in the bowl at this point,” you shook your head at him, wiping his mask off for at least the fifth time. He chuckled, taking your hands and pulling them to the porcelain lips, making little kissing sounds into them. You blushed, but instead of pushing him away like you used to, you smiled.

“We're running kind of late today, huh?” You began, flipping the last of the pancakes out onto the platter. Brahms took it from your hands and set it on the table between your spot and his. He took his seat and you sat across from him, forking a few pancakes onto your own plate. “So, I think we should come up with a plan for the day. We can try and get back on schedule, or we can do things a little different. What do you think?”

He angled his mask away from his chin long enough to slip a large helping of pancake into his mouth, and thought to himself while he chewed on it.

“There's still some cleaning and other things that we could do, or we could just have a lazy day,” you pushed. “What do you want to do?”

He swallowed his food, set his fork down, and reached across the table to take one of your hands in both of his. He smoothed his own hand down your fingers and palm, rubbing at your wrist and back up to your fingertips. As you watched him he tilted his head to the side, eyes squinted slyly.

“Oh,” you breathed, and your eyes went wide. “ _OH_.”

You slipped your hand out of his to grab at your cup with both hands and take a large drink, choking on it when he outright laughed at you.

“Careful, darling.”

You gasped, nearly choking again. It seemed like a strange thing to find shocking, but it was the first time he had said something so... casual. All of a sudden, if it weren't for the mask, he could have been any normal person sitting there across from you. The fact that he said it in his natural, deep voice only added to the effect. 

He rose from his seat, taking up his plate of food and, eyes shining in pure amusement at you, left the room. The illusion of normality was broken when you observed the way he still walked with an awful hunch, shoulders sloping. You made a note to yourself to work on that, too.

You froze, hand poised halfway to grabbing your fork. Noticing Brahms' poor posture brought your whole plan back to the forefront of your mind, and your hand shook a little as you remembered the doctor's words from the last appointment:

 

 _'It's_ __very_ _ _important to understand just what the relationship between the two of you is.'_

 

Well, whatever your relationship had been before, it was certainly more complicated _now_. You sighed, shrugging it all off as a problem for later, and finished your breakfast in peaceful silence.

 

   Brahms made himself strangely scarce. You took the opportunity to take care of a bit of cleaning, including washing your bedding. You rolled your eyes, exasperated with yourself for having put your clean sheets on the night before. You hung up both sets of your bedding, threw your now-ruined, Brahms-ripped underwear from the floor into the trash bin, and got dressed properly.

 

Several hours later, you made your way back to the kitchen for a late lunch. With your back to the rest of the room while you waited for a pot to fill with water, you didn't notice Brahms sneaking up behind you until he had slipped his arms around your waist and rested his chin on your shoulder. You jumped.

“Oh, there you are! What have you been up to?” He shrugged, kissing your cheek through the mask. “Are you hungry? I was just making some-...”

You trailed off as he trailed himself downward, crouching behind you. You froze, uncertain. Carefully, supporting you when he forced your weight to shift, he slipped your socks off of your feet. You weren't sure what was going on, but let it slide as possibly being some new game he was playing.

That was until he pulled himself back up along you, hands pushing your shirt up over your ribs with one hand remaining over your chest, fingers splayed across the skin, the fabric bunched up so your whole front was exposed to the cool air of the kitchen. His other hand unbuttoned and then spread itself down and under your waistband, the zipper sliding free. You gripped the edge of the sink, only vaguely aware of the fact that the water was overflowing from the pot. He pushed his way between your skin and the cloth of your fresh underwear, traveling down until his hand was cupping the whole of you. You shuddered.

His fingers remembered the motions you had guided him through the night before and ran through them all again, branching off to push or pull here or there, experimenting and massaging you into a stupor that you managed to break just long enough to turn the faucet off. When your legs shook against his, he pulled away. You spun around, swallowing the whine in your throat. As soon as you were facing him, he came forward again, relieving you of your clothing except for your underwear. You shivered as the cool air met your flushed skin, but it was quickly chased away as his own warm body- freshly clothed -met yours in an embrace. He lifted you off of your feet, your legs wrapping around his waist, took a few steps back, and dropped you almost roughly onto the table.

His hands went to work again, roaming and sliding in slick, pausing now and again to push yours away when you tried to touch him back. It wasn't until he had pushed you over the edge that he relaxed for a moment, and you scrambled to slip his sweater off of his shoulders and his shirt over his belly. That was as far as you got, his own hands working open the front of his trousers and then gripping your underwear and tearing them again, chuckling when you cried out in protest. His hands grabbed yours and held them against the table on either side of your head as he pushed into you. You watched the swath of his belly revealed by his still-lifted shirt, the muscles working under the skin until his masked face pushed at your cheek, your neck, your chest as he moved, porcelain kissing your face when you cried out or growling through it when you moved your hips against his. He didn't last long, and collapsed into your chest again, his mask hovering just over your face.

 

“Is this... is this just how it's going to be now?” You panted, staring up at him. “Because it's going to be _very_ hard to get anything done.”

He laughed, full and hearty, his natural tone still managing to sound light and boyish. He scooped you up, keeping your legs around him, and brought you both to sit on the floor, still facing each other.

You reached for your shirt a foot away and he swiped it out of your reach, picking it up and flinging it through the doorway. The same process went for your pants, too, and you sat with your arms crossed over your chest, pouting rather.

“You're making me very self-conscious,” you muttered, rubbing at your bare arms while he stared lovingly at you. “And besides, this is kind of unfair. You have now seen ALL of me, and I haven't seen all of _you_!”

His head tilted forward, shoulders slumping. One hand ran over the mask.

“I... I _can't_.”

“I know,” you whispered, feeling guilty. “I felt it last night.” You held his masked face in your hands, pressing your forehead to his. “I'm sorry.”

The two of you sat in silence for a moment, then you worked up your courage and asked

“Has someone else... seen you, before?” His eyes flickered wide in sudden pain. “Is that why you don't want me to see?” He nodded, eyes shining with tears waiting to be shed.

“Mum... mummy. I came out to get food one day and... she saw me.” His eyes squeezed shut. “She _screamed_.”

“Is that why you always make yourself so small, too?” You smiled gently, running your fingers through his curls. He nodded again, and opened his eyes to stare dolefully at you.

“I scared her. I was too big.”

“Being big isn't a bad thing,” you said, wrapping your arms around his neck and holding him close. “You're big, and tall, and _very_ strong, and that's _good_.” He shook in your arms and you squeezed him tighter. “And it's not your fault, either. It just... happens! You can't help it! And, look,” you pulled back so that you could look him in the eye. “even if you did scare her by being big, _she's_ not here right now. _I_ am. And I love how big and strong you are.” You smiled and then he _did_ start crying.

The rest of the day passed at a lazy pace. You didn't get much work done, and Brahms joined you in your room that night, helping you to make your bed with freshly-dried sheets, and then curling his long body under them, staring at you with big eyes until you joined him. 

 

   The next morning you were up on time, and Brahms met you downstairs for breakfast. He was getting better at it, you noted. With very little guidance he made pancakes and scrambled eggs. After you had both finished eating, he disappeared into his sanctuary, leaving you alone. You crept up to your room in silence and upended the black folder onto your bed. 

The list of the doctor's questions lay before you, most of them scribbled around or crossed off as being already taken care of, but the last question stood out. It was the only one you hadn't touched on yet. Somehow it always felt personal, and you wound up leaving it alone. You smoothed out the wrinkles and creases of the paper, taking a deep, steadying breath before reading the question to yourself.

 

_'What is in the way of him living by himself?'_

 

Your mind went blank, something long-ignored waiting just on its edge. A sudden chill shook through you and you gathered the papers together, stuffing them back in the black folder and shoving the lot into the chest. There were other things you could work on. 

The doctor had said to work on encouraging him to improve what those things with which he'd already made progress and, if possible, get him to go outside. That seemed like a bit of a challenge, but over the next few hours of doing chores you formed a plan of action, and set it into motion when you went to make lunch. 

   Brahms appeared just as you were finishing making sandwiches, waiting patiently while you plated everything and grabbed two napkins. He held out his hands to take his plate and-

-you walked right past him. 

You could practically feel the confusion radiating off of him as you walked away, a plate in each hand and the napkins tucked under an arm. You made your way to the door leading out to the gardens, shuffling everything to free one hand to open the door. You left one plate and napkin on the ground, just a foot or so back from the doorway, and took the rest with you to sit on the top step leading down to the grounds. As you settled yourself, you glanced back through the open door to see Brahms lurking a couple of yards in. He crept forward, eyeing you with suspicion and annoyance, and sat next to his plate. You couldn't help but feel like he knew what you were trying to do. 

You repeated this the next day, moving his plate barely half an inch closer to the door, and again the day after that. It wasn't until the plate was all but resting on the door frame itself that he caught on, scooped up his lunch, and left in a huff with much banging and slamming of doors as he disappeared into the house. You frowned, working out a new plan while you ate. 

The next day he was not in a mood to play your game. Before you could even try your revised plan, he had grabbed his lunch and disappeared again. You stomped your way outside, taking a seat out in the garden where you knew he would be able to see you from a window, and made a show of stretching in the cool air and smiling into the sunlight. He ignored you that day and the next. A week passed. You started to get desperate. Short of stripping in the garden and beckoning him out, you weren't sure what exactly to do. 

You didn't make lunch that day. You didn't do your chores. Instead, you stretched yourself out across the first step to the garden, and stayed there. 

You weren't sure if you somehow thought that would make him come out, or if you had given up. You weren't willing to admit it one way or the other, at least. He seemed too set on staying indoors. 

At least it was nice outside. Summer was creeping in, giving a warm edge to the cool breeze, and the flowers were blooming in a dazzling display. You closed your eyes and enjoyed the fresh air. 

 

   Maybe you were asleep. It could have been a dream. Light footsteps sneaking up on you from the direction of the house, pausing just on the other side of the open door.

You blinked. No, it was no dream. You were definitely awake. You definitely heard heavy breathing from inside the house. You forced yourself to stay still with your face turned away from the door. You held your breath. 

It felt like an hour passed, and maybe it had been that long, but eventually it came- the sound of a footstep, coming closer. Then another. Then _another_. Shaking, faltering, uncertain footsteps that came closer and closer until they stopped right beside you. A slight shuffling, and something was set on your belly. You finally turned your head back straight, seeing first a plate with a sandwich on it balanced on your middle, then Brahms sitting on the step near your feet. He was scrunched up in a ball, looking almost terrified and shaking, but he was here. _Outside_. 

It got easier.

You made it a habit from then on to prepare your meals and eat them outside. For the first week Brahms couldn't bring himself to leave the first step. Gradually, you encouraged him to climb the rest of the way down. The day finally came when he reached the last step and, one foot hovering for a long while over the ground, finally stepped off and onto the gravel walkway. He couldn't move for a few minutes, and you waited next to him for him to get his bearings. 

One step after another, shaking like a leaf all the while, he made his way off of the path and into the grass. He collapsed and when you bent down next to him you saw that he was crying.

"Is this... the first time you've ever been out here?" you asked quietly, carefully. He shook his head, sniffing. 

"It's... it's been... more than... _twenty years_..."

You stopped yourself from gasping, but still felt the shock. 

He didn't last long outside before he went tearing back up the steps, through the door, and away into his sanctuary.

But it got easier. 

   You left off pushing him to go outside- although he would still walk out for a minute or two with you -and instead focused on little things. He helped you more and more with the cooking, and you found him very receptive to hearing new music. Classical, orchestral, and operas were still his favorites, but he didn't seem to mind other genres, as long as the songs weren't too heavy. A rock song found its way into your playlist one day and he nearly threw your laptop across the room. 

Another week passed. You were going in for another appointment with the doctor the next day, and Brahms had insisted on making dinner that night.

You watched from the doorway as he prepared everything; his movements were clumsy, but he was persistent and went back to the recipe to double-check his work frequently.

From the other room came the soft sound of the song playing on your laptop.

_"- and if it could start being alive, you'd stop living alone.”_

At the end it was perfect, and he had done it on his own. He looked up from the finished dish, eyes bright and beaming, looking to you for approval. From the back of your mind came the last question on the list:

_'What is in the way of him living by himself?'_

You smiled at him, trying to hide the quiver in your lips, the fear seizing in your shoulders and spine, and thought,

_Not much else, now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a bit rougher, and I am sorry for that. I fought with it for a while and some parts are still iffy.  
> The chapter title and lyric at the end are from "A Stone" - Okkervil River


	6. There Isn't a Hell Where We'll be Sent

   It was chilly outside. The recent trend of warm weather had been brutally interrupted by a foggy, icy morning. Frost clung to every leaf in the garden, and you had spent the better part of the morning covering up the flowers, hoping that at least some of them made it through the sudden chill. Brahms had hung back in the doorway, wringing his hands and shivering. You were almost disappointed, seeing it as a break in his progress, but then you had realised that the one thing you hadn't bought him yet was any shoes at all. He had bounced from foot to foot as you bounded back up the steps and into the house.

Several hours and a few cups of hot cocoa and tea later, you were bundled up in front of the door, your recently-returned scarf wrapped snugly around your throat (and you strongly suspected that other articles of clothing had gone missing to replace it, but you hadn't had a chance to check yet and he had refused to say anything about it). It was time to leave for another appointment with the doctor, but a problem had just arose that needed immediate attention.

The problem was Brahms standing stubbornly in front of the door, and maybe the attention wasn't 'needed' as much as 'demanded'.

“Brahms,” you sighed, breathing out slowly to calm your nerves. Things had been going well. You didn't want another bad day. You might have gotten annoyed when he still refused to move, but you noticed a slight tremble in his hands and forced yourself to be patient. “We talked about this. I have to leave, I won't be gone for very long, and I'll be back as soon as I can.” He shook his head. “Remember what happened last time? The bad day?”

That got his attention. He hung his head, shoulders slumping, masked face totally hidden behind a drape of curls.

“I remember,” he whispered.

“ _Talk to me_ , Brahms.”

“I...” He took a few deeps breaths. “I had a bad dream.” His voice wavered, the pitch shifting oddly, as though his child's voice was trying to sneak in again.

“What happened?”

He fought it down, and when he replied his voice was back to its natural tone.

“I had a dream where you... you left.” His face tilted upward again, his eyes through the holes looking hurt and accusatory. “You left and you didn't come back.”

Your stomach sank, and for a moment you were unsure of what to say. The two of you stood in silence, staring at each other.

“Why...” You swallowed through a dry throat and tried again. “Why would you think that I wouldn't come back?”

He hung his head again and when he spoke his voice was so soft that you almost missed it.

 

“Everyone leaves. No one comes back.”

 

Your heart wrenched and you had to fight down the guilt roiling in your gut. This wasn't good. You set your bag down and took two steps closer to him.

“Do you know what a promise is, Brahms?” He stared at you and nodded slowly. “I _promise_ that I will leave today and come right back as soon as I can.” He still seemed uncertain. You tried again. “I promise that I will be back today. In three hours. With ice cream and kisses.” You smiled as you said the last, and his shoulders shook in a silent laugh. You could tell he was still shaken at the idea that you wouldn't return, and took the last few steps to come right up to him, standing tip-toe and bringing him in to a great, squeezing hug, and whispering into his ear, “I'm coming back.”

Eventually he stepped aside, allowing you to say goodbye and step out into the frosty air. Your car didn't want to run in the cold, but with a little coaxing you got it to chug along into town and to the doctor's office.

 

-

 

“So, his progress is still steady?” The doctor asked, looking over the notes she had made in the last thirty minutes. You nodded, smiling.

“Yes! He's getting better with cooking and cleaning. He's still really uncomfortable with going outside, but he's... he's _trying_. He's getting there.”

She smiled back at you and said

“Trying is the best we can ask for. Keep it up. Just keep going slow. Maybe work on communication. Don't just try to trick him into doing things, but try to talk it through with him more, okay?”

“Sure.” You stood, grabbing your bag and the black folder and heading for the door.

“Before you leave,” she began, making you turn back before your hand could turn the knob. “I had a question for you.”

“Yes?” You took your seat again. She stared at you, thinking for a moment, then said

 

“Why are you really doing this?”

 

Shock stole your words for a breath, and you stuttered outright

“Because it- it needs to be done, doesn't it? He _needs_ help, and I- I just-”

“-have no personal stake in this?”

“... I don't understand.”

She sighed, setting her pad of paper and pen aside, hands clasping together as she settled her elbows on the tops of her knees and leaned in.

“If you see someone trip, and everything they're carrying falls to the ground, it's understandable that you would stop and help them pick everything up. The most you've lost is a minute of your time, but you feel good for having helped someone out. _You_ feel good, _they_ feel good, everyone wins. It's not totally unheard of for people to go out of their way to lend a hand in more extreme situations, but the _more_ _extreme_ the situation, the more likely people are to bow out or find themselves with any excuse to not step in. People have found that the more fervently one wishes to help in a particular situation, the more likely it is that that person has some personal connection _to_ that situation, or... some _history_ that's connected to it.”

You breathed out long and low.

“You know about me.”

She nodded slowly.

“Of course I know about you. I didn't bring this up to _show you_ that I know what happened. That wouldn't do you or me any good. What I want,” she gestured to you with her clasped hands, “ _for you_ , is for you to be honest with yourself about why you are going through all this trouble for this man. Is it really for _his_ benefit... or yours? What are you hoping to get out of it? What are you going to do at the end of it? Or... what are you going to do if there _is_ no end to it?”

A chill slid down your back from your shoulders and you rose, turning on your heel and walking out the door. It took some effort to not slam it behind you, and the receptionist eyed you warily as you all but ran from the office.

In the safety of your car you took a moment with your eyes closed to just breathe. A steady pattering of small rain drops on the windows created a calming rhythm that you clung to until your heart rate slowed. You started the car and took off, but the doctor's words chased you down the street.

_Why are you doing this?_

_What are you hoping to get out of it?_

_What are you going to do at the end of it?_

_What if there IS no end to it?_

_Everyone leaves._

 

Brahms crept into your memory. A tall man with curly hair, his shoulders slumped and head hanging in the pain of his own memories.

 

_No one comes back._

 

There was a moment where panic took over and you thought that maybe it really would be easier to just run. You could leave, drive away right then and never see the manor again. You could hide out in a hotel room and call the authorities. Have Brahms taken away to some facility somewhere.

Maybe that would be better for you both.

The old, familiar anxieties mixed with a few new ones to stage an assault. You stared at the mirror and, shaking, realised they were winning by a thunderous landslide.

You turned the car around.

You went back to the office.

You slammed each door on your way back in to the doctor.

She was waiting for you.

 

“ _I don't know what to do_.” You were shaking, feeling like crying, and trying your damnedest to not have a full-blown panic attack. “I wanted him to get better- I really did. And I still do! But I kept thinking... I kept thinking that maybe he'll be okay. Maybe he _will_ get to a point where I don't have to be there anymore. Maybe we can _both_ be okay.”

The doctor nodded, a perfect picture of calm with her hands folded in her lap, one leg crossed over the other. She gave you a piercing look, honest but full of good intentions.

“And what do you want now?”

“I...” You held your head in your hands. “I don't know. _I don't know_. Things got a lot more complicated than I meant for them to be. I still think he could get to a point where he could live on his own... eventually. But how long will that take? What will it take to get there? Will I be able to keep helping him? Will I-?”

“Do you want to stay with him?”

You stared at her in silence. She continued, smiling gently.

“It's understandable that, being so close to the situation, you might have lost sight of some things. Let's bring this all back to the basics, alright? Please, take a seat.” You nodded, breathing heavily and trying not to hyperventilate, and sat back down in the chair across from her. “Now, let's just take a minute to catch our breath, okay? Just sit for a minute. Breathe in deep, let it out slow. Again. _Slower_. Good. Keep going.”

Several minutes passed. You closed your eyes and breathed, letting each exhale draw out. Your racing heartbeat slowed. Your mind calmed. There was still that persistent anxiety crawling through your skull, but it wasn't as overwhelming. You opened your eyes to a serenely smiling doctor.

“Feel better?” You nodded. “Excellent. Then, we're getting back to our basics, right? So... what are you doing?”

“I am...” Your mind blanked.

“Just try to think of things in a very simple way. Don't get caught up in the details. Give me a nutshell version of the whole truth.”

“Okay, then I'm... trying to help a man.”

“A _little_ more detail than that, please.” You shrugged and tried again.

“I'm trying to help a man learn how to live as a reasonably healthy adult who can take care of himself.”

“Good. What was in the way of him being a ' _reasonably healthy adult who can take care of himself_ '?”

“He didn't really know how to do anything? Someone had always taken care of him before, and he relied on them almost entirely. He barely even knew how to properly wash himself. He was fine with _learning_ how to do everything. It's just... no one had bothered to _teach_ him.”

“And what is in still in the way of him living the way that you want him to live?”

“He still...” You thought about it for a few seconds. “He likes learning, but he still doesn't have the drive to learn on his own. He still needs someone there holding his hand through everything. Guiding him. When he's upset or frustrated he still doesn't know how to work through it without taking it out on someone else. He's getting better about everything, but he's just... not quite _there_ yet, you know?”

“Right. Now... why are you helping him?”

“I... I want to help him... because I know what it's like to be abandoned by people. I know what it's like to feel like everyone is going to leave you alone. I know what it's like to not know how to take care of yourself, and to be afraid of change, and to want things to be better, but not know how to make them better.”

“You see something of yourself in him?”

“Kind of...”

“Okay. Last question. Just take it slow, take as much time as you need to think it through before you answer. Tell me... do you want to stay with him?”

 

-

 

   The house was peacefully quiet when you had opened the front door again. You closed it behind you, shutting out all the cold but the slight draft that had slipped in, and kicked off your shoes, hanging your things by the door. You took a few steps further into the house, looking around cautiously, curiously. 

A curly head peeked around the corner from the kitchen and whispered

" _Ice cream_?"

You couldn't help but laugh and, playing at looking wounded, said

"I see the promise of _ice cream_ was more important than the _kisses_."

"No!" He cried, swinging himself around the corner and running over, sweeping you up into a feet-off-the-ground hug. "Kisses are the MOST important!" To prove his point he set you down, slid his mask up to bare his chin and mouth, and gave you a dozen kisses all over your face. You were giggling by the end of it, your face warm. 

"Glad to hear it!" You grinned, slipping out of his grasp and going back to your bag. "And yes, of course I brought you ice cream." 

He bounced as you held out the pint to him, making a small noise of protest when you pulled it back before he could grab it.

"You _are_ going to get the ice cream, Brahms. I just... would like you to do something for me, first. Do you remember when we talked before, and you said that you were too big?" 

He nodded and answered,

"You said you _liked_ that I was big and strong."

You smiled. 

"Yes, exactly. So, I'd like you to just... stand up straight for me, okay? Here," you set the pint down so that you could straighten him out. "Roll your shoulders back like this... there you go. And make your back nice and straight... hold your head up... yes, just like that!"

He was easily another inch or two taller when his posture was corrected. He looked uncomfortable.

"I feel... _bigger_."

"That's okay! You _are_ big, but remember? It's not a bad thing!" 

He stood a little straighter, his eyes beaming. 

It didn't last long. A minute or so later his shoulders had sunk down again, his neck relaxing at an odd slope, head pushed forward. You kept at it, reminding him whenever you saw him for the rest of the day, knowing it was going to take a while. The chill of the day persisted into the night, and you wound up building a nest around the small heater you had bought for your room after Brahms had warned you about using any of the fire places. The man himself snuck in shortly after you had settled in and curled around you, leaving you in a bundle of warmth coming in from all sides. All things considered, it was one of your better nights. 

   

   The cold spell broke the next day, and the warm weather returned full-force. 

Late morning found you outside, enjoying the fresh air and carefully removing all of the covers from the flowers. A few weren't happy about the previous day's cold, but overall they were doing splendid. Halfway through you heard the soft patter of bare feet on grass, and turned to find Brahms slinking through the gardens, clinging to the bushes just off the path and looking nervous. 

"You made it out!" 

He nodded, glancing around, his hands clasped, white-knuckled, in front of him. 

"It looked... _nice_... out here..."

"It is." You looked him over, studying the way he held his body tense, like he could disappear into himself; the way he clung to the edges of a space. "Brahms... does the open space scare you?"

His eyes flicked over to meet yours briefly, before they went back to darting back and forth. 

"Yes," he whispered. "I'm not used to all of... _THIS_. There's so _much_."

"That makes sense. You've lived in _walls_ for twenty-odd years. This is a lot of open space." You crossed your arms and thought to yourself for a minute, finally smiling and taking his hand. "Here, I have an idea."

Clearly still uncomfortable, he let you lead him through the garden to a smaller section of grass, surrounded almost entirely by bushes and flowers. It was still open, but felt more contained. You sat in the damp grass and pulled him down next to you. He drew his legs up to his chest, hugging his knees close, and stared around. But it helped. The closeness of the plants seemed to help him feel more secure, and while he was still nervous, he did start to relax. You leaned back slowly, one hand still held tightly in his grasp, and stretched yourself out in the grass. Hesitantly, he followed suit. 

For a long while the two of you sat in a peaceful silence, staring at the clouds, the flowers all around. You rolled over, Brahms turning on his side to face you as you did so. 

One of his hands found your cheek and traced over the lines of your face. You pulled it away from you and just held on, letting your own fingers roam over his, feeling a scar here or there, a few rough spots, the structure, the shape, the strength. Enough strength to hold you steady, to stop you from moving, to stop someone from breathing.

You didn't usually look at his hands and think about the fact that they had wrung life from a body or two. It was easy to get caught up in the flow of the everyday. Easy to momentarily forget all the awful things we do to each other.

 

_'Why are you doing this?'_

 

Your eyes squeezed shut. You dropped his hand.

"What's wrong?" he asked softly. You took a deep breath.

"Do you remember the bad day?" A pause, and then

"Yes."

"Do you remember what I said?"

"..."

"Do you remember..." You licked your lips, throat going dry. "Do you remember when I said that I... that I had killed someone?"

"Yes."

You opened your eyes. His own were unreadable.

"That doesn't bother you?"

He shrugged.

"I've killed people, too."

Like it was nothing. Like it didn't matter.

__This isn't good._ _

You shook, tears prickling at your eyes.

"Well, it bothers _me_."

He looked confused, and asked

“Why?”

You sighed.

“Brahms... we need to talk. And maybe you're not ready for this talk, but I think if we don't have it right now, it'll never happen. Because I'm... tired, and some things are getting easier, but others are getting more difficult, and I need to just get something off of my chest or I'll explode. I need to tell you the truth.”

He looked like you felt. Scared, but you were the only one shaking. 

"What's wrong?" He whispered. 

"Do you remember... a while ago, when you got upset with me because I was on the phone... because I was talking about you to other people?" He nodded. "I was looking for a special doctor. And I found one."

"A doctor... for me?"

"Yes. I've been going to see her since that day and she's been helping me with you. Because... you're a very special person, Brahms. You're... you're different, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. I wanted to help you but I didn't know how, so I had to find someone who _DID_ know how to help you." 

His eyes narrowed in suspicion. 

"Help me how?"

"Everything I've been doing lately? Teaching you how to clean yourself properly, how to cook, how to clean the house, how to stand up straight? How to 'talk' to me when you're angry instead of throwing a tantrum? Those are all things that someone should have helped you with years ago. But they never did. I don't want you to think that I tricked you, or anything. Everything I've been working with you on is to help you. I just... wanted you to be _okay_. Because," you sniffled a little, feeling the tears breaking through. "Because I cared about you. And because a lot of bad things have happened. And I thought... maybe if you can learn to live on your own, then I can too. You had so much more to learn than me. I had to believe... I don't know...” You covered your face with your hands. "I killed someone, Brahms. I KILLED someone. I didn't mean to, and I felt awful about it, and I _STILL_ feel awful about it. I know you don't understand why, but that's a problem, too. Think about what would happen, how you would feel, if someone came and killed me. And I was just... gone. And you never got to see me again. I did that to someone else. I took someone's... _someone_. _Do you understand?_ "

You uncovered your face. He was still staring at you, a strange look in his eyes.

"I... understand." A sudden intensity came into his gaze and he clasped your hands in his again. "But no one is going to kill you. _I won't let them_." 

There was something endearing in the way he had turned this around; made it about the two of you instead of his questionable morals, looking like he would take on the world for you. You let out a long sigh, the sound quivering through your current tearful state. 

"What did you mean... that you wanted to believe you could live on your own?" The intensity in his eyes cooled to worry as he spoke. "Why would you want to live alone? I'm right here. I'm with you." All at once he was fighting back tears of his own, his eyes growing large and hurt. "... You were going to leave?"

"Yes." You wiped at your eyes, tears still falling through. "I was. But now? I-" You choked, shaking. "I don't want to go. _I don't want to go_. I want to stay right here." You cried and silence stretched over the grass. Slowly, his hands slid over your arms, up to your shoulders, and down to your back. He held onto you until your shuddering had stopped, and then he rose and walked quietly back into the mansion, leaving you alone. 

You stayed outside for a while longer, letting yourself calm down and trying not to worry over his reaction. When you finally re-entered the house it was totally quiet. For the rest of the day silence reigned. It was as though you were the only one there. It was as though Brahms had left. You told yourself that it was probably for the best. You both needed a little time to yourselves. Telling yourself this only helped so much, and you spent another long night alone, fighting with your ghosts. 

 

   Gentle sunlight filled your room as you awoke for the fourth- and final -time. The house was still and quiet around you. Something told you it might be better to just stay in bed, but you knew there was nothing there for you. You rose, got yourself ready for the day and made your bed up. You paused at the foot of it as you were about to leave your room, a sudden thought creeping in unasked and begging for attention. 

All the good that you claimed you were doing for Brahms, but it wasn't all one-sided, was it? You thought about fitful sleep and nights spent alone, days spent feeling like everyone you knew had distanced themselves. Like they were afraid of you.

That's why you had come here in the first place. That's why you hadn't been worried that the price on the mansion was so low due to a recent murder. That's why you had ignored the American woman's warnings that, in spite of the police investigating the area, she was sure the murderer was still on the estate. 

That part of you that felt like maybe what you had done had made you monster put you right at home here. 

Then there was Brahms. 

Brahms, who took care of you immediately, before you even knew he was around.

Brahms, who hadn't cared to start with about anything you might have done in the past. 

Brahms, who made you feel safe, made you feel at home, made you feel like there was nowhere you belonged more than right next to him, or nestled in his arms.

Brahms, who hadn't cared when you said you had killed someone. Who had still looked at you like God couldn't have made anything more perfect. 

The doctor's words hung over you.

_'What if there is no end to it?'_

_What if you didn't WANT there to be an end to it?_

You felt like crying, but an ache filled your chest and no tears came. You left your room. The house remained quiet as you entered the hall and you hated the idea that he was keeping himself away. Was he upset? Was this some kind of punishment for you having thought about leaving? You stood still for a moment, then stepped right up to the wall and knocked three times, loud and clear. You went to the landing at the top of the stairs and said, in a voice that you hoped would carry through the walls,

"Whenever you want to talk, I'll be here."

You went downstairs, out the back door, and settled yourself out on the grass in the bright sunshine. 

 

   Maybe it had been only been a few minutes. Maybe it had been hours. Soft footsteps came across the grass toward you, and a long body nestled itself up against your right side in the grass. You opened your eyes slowly and looked over. His own eyes were closed. You stared at him for a moment, then said

"I wish you could feel the sunlight on your face, Brahms. It's lovely." 

His eyes flickered open and his face turned toward you, eyes unreadable. You smiled gently. 

"You can take off your mask. I won't look! See, I'll turn over," you rolled onto your side, facing away from him. "I'll close my eyes and I won't open them until you tell me I can, okay?" You squeezed your eyes shut. 

It took a few seconds, but a small sound behind you let you know that he had taken his mask off. There was silence once again while he lay still, the sun shining fully on his face for the first time in more than twenty years.

A gentle touch on your shoulder brought your heart to skip a beat, and you held your breath. The hand trailed itself down along your arm and wrapped itself around your own hand, a chest pressing against your back, a mouth to your ear. 

"Open your eyes."

You shook, and for a second you couldn't breathe. He pulled back as you slowly turned yourself back over to face him. Your eyes opened. 

Brown curls shining golden under the sun framed a fine face, features gently rounded but strong. A fine face that would have had him called a "pretty boy" if it weren't for the heavy scarring covering the better part of the right side. The damage had been focused along his brow, ruining the skin so severely  that his right eyebrow had no hair at all and the lashes around that eye were sparse. The right side of his nose had warped, the bridge and nostril looking partially-melted. The left side of his face was relatively untouched, with pale skin and a thick, dark eyebrow. His grey eyes stared at you with that look that managed to be intense and soft at the same time. You smiled, and touched his face gently, his fingers rising to run along yours. 

"Please," he whispered, and you found it strange being able to _see_ him speak, rather than just hear him, muffled, behind a mask. He smiled, and it struck you that you were seeing it for the first time. His eyes narrowing gently like you had always seen, but there were his thin lips parting too, the corners turning up and his eyebrow rising slightly. "Please, don't leave."

You leaned in, pressing your lips to his in the sweetest kiss, trying to show him as best you could that you didn't mind the scars any more than he minded yours. He shivered as you kissed over the ruined skin of his right cheek bone and brow, down his nose, and back to his lips, finally pressing your forehead to his and whispering

"I'm not going anywhere."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya'll, I couldn't have made that more sappy if I tried.  
> Thank you for reading this self-indulgent thing and commenting/bookmarking/leaving kudos now or in the future. I always appreciate it.  
> Now let's all just cross our fingers that the second movie doesn't fuck with our dear Brahms in a bad way, yeah?  
> Chapter title is from "No Key, No Plan" - Okkervil River.  
> "And we'll float up high, and it isn't a sin, and there isn't a hell where we'll be sent. There's only 'now', there isn't 'then', so just breathe it in."


	7. You Can Have it; Take it

   The cold-snap came overnight. Outside, a fine layer of frost coated every leaf, bud, and branch in the garden. Water in the small fountains had stilled into glass. The chill drifted in through the open rear door of the mansion, turning his breath into swirling vapor and leaving his skin goose-pimpled beneath his cardigan. He shuffled in place, eyes darting as though at any moment danger could leap in upon him. It didn't, of course. The real danger wasn't anything outside. It was that doorway.

There wasn't anything magical about it; nothing to differentiate it between any other doorway in the mansion. What made it such a threat was the fact that it represented something. A portal. A cutoff. A barrier.

One step outside and anything could happen. What if he went out and something happened and he couldn't get back in? What if he was stuck in the foreign Outdoors? What if...

He took a deep breath and a hard swallow.

 

What if something happened and he couldn't reach them?

 

Every time he had been outside in the last six months it had been with his person right at his side. The possibilities of danger- in his mind -were much less intimidating when he knew they were there with him. Whatever came, the two of them could handle it- _together_. And, yes, the door was open and theoretically he could run right back inside if something DID happen, but _what_ _IF_ _-_?

He shook himself. If they were here, they would probably think he was being silly. Nothing was going to happen. He tugged his scarf up over his nose to fend off the cold. With another sharp shake of his head he walked forward, crossing the threshold, feeling the ice crunch under his shoes as he bounded down the stairs and into the garden.

The latch on the shed was stuck and stubborn in the cold and it took a minute to get it to turn. He collected the various tarps, sheets, and ropes they used to cover the plants and deposited them in a heap at the center of the garden, taking one set at a time and winding them around every tree and shrub. It took nearly an hour and by the time he stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking over his work, his fingers were stiff and sore with the cold, every digit flushed red.

 

“Brahms?”

 

He looked over his shoulder at the sound of footsteps on the porch. There they stood, smartly dressed in all their winter gear, looking with surprise at the covered garden.

“You did all this?” He nodded, smiling up at them as they walked down the stairs toward him. They took his face in their gloved hands and exclaimed, “And you're not wearing your mask! I'm so proud of you!” Heat swelled in his chest at the praise, burning as he was enveloped in a smothering hug. “God, but it's FREEZING out here!” They pulled back and tugged on his sleeve, nodding back up the stairs. “Want some cocoa?”

He nodded vigorously and raced them back up to the house, shutting the door on the frozen world behind them.

-

“I appreciate you covering everything, but you DID let in a bit of a chill.” You huffed, sloughing off your coat and leaving it, your boots, and gloves by the door. He looked balefully at you over the scarf wrapped around most of his face and you sighed. “I'm not upset, it's just... going to be a little cold in here for the rest of the day.”

The kitchen was a little warmer than the hall and became even more so after the stove was turned on. The two of you huddled near it while you taught him how to make hot cocoa.

As he followed your instructions you watched him out of the corner of your eye. He didn't seem irritated or angry at all; he was back to his usual curious, calm, bright-eyed self. This was a good sign. He had recovered quickly. It had, after all, only been two days since you'd brought company over to the mansion.

-

   The door had only just clicked shut, closing on the car driving away from the house, when a crash came from a sitting room behind you.

“ _Brahms?!_ ” You called out, running to the source of the sound and arriving in the doorway just in time to watch a lamp zip across the room and shatter on the far wall. A ragged cry of rage filled the room and rooted you to the spot, unable to do much more than watch as Brahms flung himself around the room, upending furniture, books, several antiques, taxidermy, and finally another lamp that exploded in a shower of glass as he slammed it into the ground near his feet. Everything went quiet, the only movement a few papers drifting to the floor.

He stood in the middle of the disaster he'd made and trembled, his chest heaving in great, shuddering breaths. You let a minute of silence pass, then calmly asked,

“Feel better?”

Another stretch of silence, then his low voice, pained, answered,

“ _No_.”

You stepped carefully into the room, tip-toeing around a few broken odds and ends and a book that had survived being thrown across the room with little more than a single bent page to show for it. You stopped when you were near his side, just behind him.

“What did you think was going to happen?” You asked gently and he shook his head.

“I don't know. I just...” He shrugged, gesturing vaguely around the room.

“I know. In the past you probably pitched fits just like that and mummy and daddy made everything better.” You tried to keep a tired or mocking tone from your voice, but it was difficult; if it came through at all, he didn't seem to notice. “But they're not here now. This was childish, and you're not a child.”

He looked around the room, nodding, and kept nodding as he hung his head and hid his face behind his hands.

“Brahms?” He froze. “Can I hear you say it?”

His hands lowered and he turned slightly toward you.

“You're not a child?”

“I am...” He swallowed, eyes closing and opening slowly. “not a child.”

“What are you?”

“I am... an _adult_.” He choked around the word, then, more confidently, said, “I'm a man.”

“Yes,” you smiled. “Yes, you are.”

You should have felt prouder, but the edge of shock was starting to wear off, bringing irritation over the immature outburst and a trembling to your hands. Pride would come later, you hoped.

“You are an adult and a man, and you know what that means?” You asked, and he shook his head, still staring at you. “That means... that when you make a mess, you clean it up.”

You walked away.

-

   Nothing had happened during the visit. No one had even seen or heard him, but just the presence of strangers in his house- regardless of the fact that you had warned him they were coming -had set him off. All things considered, it could have ended worse, you thought. He could have caused trouble while they were still in the mansion. An unwelcome thought you pushed to the back of your head said, _'He could have killed someone'_.

He had cleaned up the mess he made as well as he could, and you stepped in later to help him with the rest. Then he had disappeared into his sanctuary in the walls and had not come out until this morning, going outside to cover the garden for you while you got ready for work.

“It's pretty easy, isn't it?”

He nodded happily, stirring the simmering mixture in smooth motions. You left him to it, stepping away to gather up mugs and bowls for breakfast.

 

   The schedule for the day was simple enough- you and Brahms made breakfast together, then you finished getting ready and left for work, getting a kiss and a hug on your way out the door. He still looked terrified and heartbroken when you left, but he was handling it better these days.

Work lasted until five and you usually came home right after (unless you felt like stopping to pick up a treat), arriving back at the mansion by six o'clock. Brahms had become so confident and adept with cooking that he usually had dinner nearly finished by the time you returned and, if it wasn't done, you would finish it together.

After dinner was eaten and the kitchen straightened up, you would settle in with him on a couch or bed and read from one of the mansion's many books. His favorites were the gothics, romances, and poetry; anything that felt dramatic and wistful and strange.

When you turned in for the night it was usually together and usually in your bed, but there were still nights when he would pull himself away and slip into the walls. He hadn't yet reached the point where he would allow you into his own space for the night, but you had finally seen it a month or so ago and once or twice since then.

You crawled into bed that night and he was already under the covers, curled into a ball and half-asleep. You lay for awhile in the dark, looking over the contours of his mask-less face lit by moonlight.

 

It had been close to seven months since he had first shed the mask with you, in this same room, the curtains drawn over the windows to paint the room pitch-black. Once he knew he could come to you for physical comforts, he took advantage frequently for the following few months. You figured he'd had a lot of tension built up, being alone for so long. Eventually he calmed down a bit, but the hungry, borderline-starved nature of his actions never really went away.

 

There was the time when he interrupted a walk through the woods on the property to drag you into a copse of trees, so desperate that he hadn't bothered to remove most of your clothing- and none from himself -before sinking into you. The frantic mood lasted until the end when he growled at a passing squirrel for daring to get so close, sending you, and then himself, into fits of laughter, laying enveloped in each other in the middle of the autumnal leaves.

 

Another time had you taking the lead following a mistake on your part that led to him coldly ignoring you. You got fed up and pushed him down on the uncomfortable sofa in the study, for once the one to push _his_ hands away when he tried to turn the roles around. He backed off when you got going, realising how enjoyable having someone else take control could be. You turned him into a completely incomprehensible mess, melting under you.

 

Or that time when, finding his jealousy over the friendly relationship you'd developed with the postman at its breaking point, he waited until you were inside to drag you into the walls of the mansion. Your heart had raced in a mixture of excitement and confusion. FINALLY he was taking you to his sanctuary! It had taken about a year, but at last your relationship had reached that level of trust. He had pulled you in and spun you out into the room, slamming the door shut behind you both. You had no time to examine the sacred space he'd kept hidden as he stalked forward, turning you around forcing you face-down onto the wooden floor. What followed was an event more frantic than what had passed between you in the woods. Everything was hard; not enough to hurt, but only just. One hand held your head in a solid grip across your scalp, the other trapping your left hand against the floor where your nails scratched out splinters. Breath steamed across your neck, teeth dragging at the skin as he ground out a low,

 

“ _Mine_.”

 

There were days where he could hardly stand to be apart from you which were better spent wearing nothing at all, for the frequency with which he'd crawl into you.

Not that everything had to end that way. There were days spent in a comfortable and lazy silence with little interaction between you, days where he demanded regular attention and all but clung to you, begging you to read to him, walk with him, talk to him, and a few days that some people might even call “normal”.

A day in the middle of summer had found the two of you cleaning the dishes from a feast he had made the night before, the doors and windows open to let in the warm breeze. Your laptop playlist eventually shuffled itself to an elegant waltz and the two of you danced- first separately and then together. You had grown so accustomed to each other by that point that the partnership was perfect, moving easily and gracefully across the kitchen floor. Then a jazzy number took over and you separated again to teach him a livelier dance.

He wasn't always the most graceful dancer but he was nothing if not enthusiastic, and his strong desire to learn resulted in you looking up new dances frequently. He memorised them all.

-

   Light filtered its way through your eyelids and you pulled them back slowly, blinking against the morning sun shining in your window. You groaned, squeezing your eyes shut again and rolled over, one arm flopping out long across the bedspread. You frowned and felt around, opening your eyes to see that the bed was, indeed, empty of another body. Brahms was already up.

It had taken him awhile to get on board with the idea of 'The Weekend' and 'Sleeping in', but you convinced him over time that it didn't mean a complete interruption of the schedule, but rather that the whole thing just got pushed back a little. Some mornings he would still get up at the usual time to start the day his way, and he usually left you alone to sleep. _Usually_.

You slipped off the bed and made your way to the door, the smells of eggs, sausage, and beans drifting up when you opened it, wafting around you as you made your way down. Brahms wasn't in the kitchen, but he had left you a plate of food on the table. Your mind went back some months ago to The Bad Day, when you had prepared and left that morning's breakfast in much the same way he had just done. _Things do change_ , you thought with a smile.

   The world outside the kitchen window was sleeping under a blanket of snow, sunlight shining on the pure white surface. Something about the day felt soft and beautiful and like it should be shared with someone. After eating, you wandered through the house, looking for any signs of your housemate, but none were found. With a little hesitation, you decided to try and find his sanctuary on your own.

You started in your own room, since you were so familiar with the direction you knew he came from whenever he showed up there. A few taps along the wall, pressing here and there, and you were able to pop open a small door in the wood paneling. You paused on the threshold. It was _horribly_ dirty. You knew your slippers were going to be ruined, but you pulled them on anyway, started to head into the walls, then had a second thought and pulled a robe on over your pajamas.

The passageways were cramped, dusty, and dark, with very little light squeezing its way in through an occasional crack in the wall. It took a little exploring to find your way; you really hadn't been to his room often enough to have the route memorised. By the time you pushed open the door you were wearing a thick coat of grime over your robe and slippers, and Brahms greeted you with wide eyes, seated at his workbench and frozen mid-motion with his hands raised holding knitting needles and yarn.

You coughed, feeling sheepish and suddenly unsure of what to do. He didn't look angry or annoyed- just surprised. You finally crept forward, shedding your filthy robe, and draped yourself over his back, arms wrapped around his shoulders and face resting against the back of his neck. He gave your arms a little squeeze with one hand, then carried on with his work like nothing had happened.

It occurred to you that all this time you when thought you were giving him his privacy by staying out of this room, he may have just been waiting for you to come in on your own. You could see why he hid out here so much. It was dim, peaceful, and comfortable.

   Just as you were starting to drift off standing up, he gave you a little shake to rouse you.

“Mm?” you yawned, pushing yourself off of him and landing with an “oomph!” in his lap when he turned and pulled you in again. He held you close and the two of you sat in silence for a minute.

“Morning,” he finally mumbled into your forehead.

“Morning,” you mumbled back into his chest.

“Shower?” he asked, pulling back.

“Shower,” you answered back with a nod.

 

   You opted to go for the bathroom Brahms usually used, since it had a large stall and your own bathroom had a tub that was really only suitable for one person. You undressed, helping each other once or twice, and as he turned to you after setting his mask down you felt a jolt like you always did at the sight of his scars- the ones on his face and shoulder from the fire, and the large dark spot of a scar on his abdomen which was still a mystery to you. He gave you a look of discomfort when he caught you staring, and reached around you to turn the water on.

There were days when you would shower together and things could become heated in more ways than one. This was not one of those days. This was a day for washing each others' hair, giving yourself bubble hats with the foamy soap, and sitting under the water just enjoying the feeling of the heat around you.

“It's still kind of strange... seeing you without your mask.” You smiled at him, both of you seated on the tile floor, leaning on the wall of the shower stall as the water poured down around you.

“It... still _feels_ strange,” he said quietly, barely audible over the water.

“I'm glad you've been keeping it off more often lately. It's nice to be able to see you.”

His lips quirked up in an uncertain smile. He ran a hand over his face, fingers worrying over the burn scars.

“You always stare at me.”

“I don't mean to make you uncomfortable. I mean, _I_ feel self-conscious when you look at _me,_ if that makes you feel any better _._ ”

He looked confused, and asked, “Why?”

You gave him a short list of your “problem areas”- things that had always bothered you about your body. He gave you a bewildered look, and followed it up with a steady stream of kisses over your body, leaving you light-headed and giggling as you did the same for him in turn.

The shower was finally turned off for the sake of not wasting any more water, and both of you dried off and got dressed in clean clothes.

“What do you want to do this morning?” you asked, straightening your shirt. He eyed his mask for a moment, then turned away from it and answered,

“Walk.”

“Sounds good!” You smiled and nodded, leading him down the stairs to retrieve your coats and boots.

 

   The cold air bit into every bit of exposed skin when the door opened and you stepped out onto the front porch, Brahms trailing behind you.

“Which way do you want to go? Or...” you faltered as an idea came into your head and, with some uncertainty, you asked, “do you want to try going by yourself?”

He stared at you with his big, bright eyes, and looked terrified. But he didn't say 'no'. Instead, he let his gaze roam across the driveway and the grounds around it, thinking.

“I... I'll _try,_ ” he said finally. He stepped around you, right up to the edge of the top step, and froze, body a rigid line of tension.

“It's scary, isn't it?” He nodded and you smiled, even though he couldn't see it. “What if I wait right here for you? I won't be close, but I'll still be outside the house and you can come right back to me if you need to.”

He looked over his shoulder at you, thought for a moment, then nodded slowly.

“O-... okay.” He nodded again, more sure this time, and started down the stairs and driveway at a steady pace.

 

You watched him go and couldn't help but feel a certain amount of fatigue next to the understandable pride. This was a sure sign of growth but, like always, the doubt came in. Surely, someone else could have done better in your place? Wouldn't he be better off with someone who really knew what they were doing? Maybe a facility would be better option. He could have professionals, doctors to see to him all day every day. It wouldn't matter if his progress was fast, slow, or even nonexistent, because there would always be people there with the patience and knowledge to take care of him anyway. They would know when he needed to be pushed more, or if he had reached some kind of an end to the treatment and could finally be considered a relatively 'normal' adult.

The doctor's words rushed to the forefront of your brain from the depths of six months ago:

 

_'What are you going to do if there is no end to it?'_

 

_What if what if what if._

 

Maybe that was what you were really tired of. All those persistent doubts.

You took a deep breath and blew it out hard through your nose, feeling suddenly quite calm and stubborn.

 

 _So what_ if there was no end? Nothing ever really ends, does it? You're born into a family and whether you remain in contact with them or not, there is always that connection there. It doesn't _end_ ; not with distance, time, nor death. There is always something that lingers. The things you learn stick with you, informing every action you take which further has an effect on the world you interact with, creating a cycle of effects without end. You kill someone and the guilt doesn't end. The ghost of what you did carries on along with you and the nightmares never really go away completely. The therapy you take for years afterward has a lasting effect, but it's one more effect on a heap and you keep carrying them _all_. You move away from everyone you know, to a house full of secrets and you learn them all and they don't end; you carry them with you. Eventually, one of those secrets carries _you_ and gives you a purpose so divine that for awhile you decide that _you_ don't want to end yet, either. You carry each other. You keep going. You don't stop. _Nothing ends_.

A friend had asked you recently if you loved each other and you hadn't been able to give them an answer. You realised, all at once, that it really didn't matter.

Maybe it was love, but maybe it was just survival. It didn't matter. It worked for the both of you, and maybe that was enough.

Maybe... that's enough.

Maybe someone else could do better in your position; but they weren't there now. You were.

Maybe he would be better off somewhere else; but he wasn't somewhere else. He was here.

Maybe you didn't love each other, but maybe you did. It wasn't important. You were together and that, too, was enough.

-

   The thin layer of snow and the gravel beneath crunched underfoot as he walked away from the house, hands stuffed into the pockets of his coat both to keep the cold from them and to stifle the horrible shaking. The further along he went, the less overwhelming it all was; the open space of the driveway near the mansion narrowed and closed in, the treeline creeping closer until he might as well have been on a path in the woods. The branches sweeping overhead, occasionally dropping small drifts of snow over the path or on _him_ , made the area feel close and safe. Secure. He forced himself not to look behind him and the shaking nerves got worse before they got better.

The fenced edge of the property came into view and he turned to walk some yards away from and along it. The mansion and grounds were, thankfully, quite far from town, buried deep in the woods. There was no chance of anyone coming this far out, but even so he still kept back into the trees, eyes darting as he walked, finding possible hiding places- just in case.

Nothing happened. _Of course_ nothing happened.

Half an hour into the walk, his route swinging back around toward the house, he relaxed more than he ever had outside. It was... nice. Peaceful. The woods had changed plenty in the twenty-odd years since he had played in them as a child, but he could catch glimpses of areas still fairly familiar; one of his favorite hiding places at the base of an oddly-shaped tree, a sharp dip in the earth that filled with water in the winter and created a small pond, a section of the woods where the trees pressed in close and he and Emily had been playing the day she died, and nearby there were the bushes where he had left her body.

He frowned a little, good mood faltering. He was still a little unsure why his person had been so upset over the fact that he had killed people before. If he were honest, he had thought about doing the same to them when they had first moved in. The wounds- physical and emotional -from the mansion's last owner had still been healing, not to mention lingering resentment for his last nanny, leaving him in no mood to deal with another stranger. But there was something to them that had stayed his hand on the nights where he had stood over their sleeping body, arm raised with a paperweight or fire iron, ready to take them out.

They had proved receptive to him leaving little signs of his presence in the house. Eventually, they had figured things out on their own. _Greta_ had warned them about him, he found out later. He seethed at the thought of his previous nanny, rubbing absentmindedly at his abdomen, feeling the scar she had left there. An ache flooded his chest at the memory of her betrayal, a sudden regret at not killing her too, but he shrugged it off.

 

It didn't matter anymore.

 

What mattered was that there was someone else here now.

What mattered is that they were waiting for him.

What mattered is that they weren't going anywhere. 

He turned onto the driveway again, following the gravel road back up, the mansion slowly coming into view. As he drew nearer, he could make out movement- a familiar figure walking circles and figure-eights at the bottom of the mansion's stairs. They stopped as he came closer, waiting patiently with a smile they only used when they were very proud of him. His stomach flipped, face flushing at the sight of them. He stopped when he was a few feet away, and they stared at each other for a moment. 

"You okay?" They asked and he nodded.

"I'm alright."

They gestured up the stairs and held a hand out to him. 

"Ready to go back?" 

He smiled, taking their hand.

They walked together back up the stairs and into the house, shutting the door against the cold. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had meant to have this thing done in time for Christmas, but clearly THAT didn't happen. But this is the proper end for it. I made a few edits (minor grammatical issues and the addition of a few sentences here and there) to the previous chapters, but this thing is actually done this time. No point in doing more, since the movie's sequel is out in a few months and will probably undo most- if not ALL -of my characterization of Brahms. Someone asked if they could use some of the ideas I threw out here and do their own thing, and the answer is: YES, of course! There is nothing here that belongs strictly to me. Do your thing.   
> Goodnight and goodbye.  
> Chapter title is from "Gold Faces" - Okkervil River

**Author's Note:**

> After watching the movie, I couldn't get over the fact that Brahm's parents never tried to get help for their son, or to try and REALLY make things better for him. They just covered up their troubles and then checked out of life, leaving their messes for someone else to clean up. Instead of being creeped out by him (like was probably intended by the film-makers), I kept thinking that someone needs to get the man some therapy. So here we are.  
> Based largely on the Black Sheep Boy album by Okkervil River (particularly "So Come Back, I am Waiting") which is where the main and all chapter titles come from, as well as a few themes here and there.  
> and god, I've never done a readerxcanon!character story before, so this might be total shit and I apologise for that


End file.
